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Field Medicine for a Survival Situation

December 22, 2011 by Rebecca Lerner

Rose

A reader e-mailed to ask if I could suggest some medicinal wild plants that could be used fresh in the field, without much preparation, in an emergency survival situation. Usually I write about plants that take some amount of time to turn into medicine, so I thought this was a good idea.

Here are seven plants at the top of my list:

Rose – Apply the petals as a bandage to inhibit bacterial growth on cuts.

Yarrow & critter (Photographer unknown)

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) – Apply the leaf topically to stop bleeding and act as an antiseptic to prevent infection, even in very deep wounds. It can also stop internal bleeding if the leaves are dried and ingested as a tea!

Plantain (Plantago major or minor) – Chop up the leaf and add spit or water to make a paste, then apply it topically to draw out splinters or soothe stings from insects or jellyfish (I do know someone who used it this way!).

Chickweed

Chickweed (Stellaria media) – Eat the leaves, flowers and stems to bring down a high fever.

Usnea lichen – Antimicrobial properties mean it works as gauze for a wound. You can also dry it and then brew a tea of it to tackle pneumonia or a similar respiratory infection.

Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) – Eat the leaves or dry and brew as a tea to kill parasites hitching a ride as intestinal worms. This plant could cause an miscarriage, so don’t take it if you’re pregnant and want to stay that way.

Blackberry (Rubus discolor) – Dig up the root or pick and dry the leaf from this thorny vine and then drink as a tea to cure diarrhea. Might sound like a minor issue, but if left untreated, it could cause fatal dehydration.

Blackberry/ Image by Oregon State University

It is in your interest to achieve mastery at identifying these plants ahead of time. You really wouldn’t want to be trying to match sketches in a field guide to plants you aren’t familiar with in a high-stress situation.

The links to the plants listed above will take you to my posts on identification and further use info.

Wild plants save lives. Share this post.

Posted in Eat Weeds, Urban Foraging, Wilderness Survival | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Kinnickinnick: How to Cure a UTI

December 11, 2011 by Rebecca Lerner

IMG_1278
Kinnickinnick, Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, also called Uva Ursi, Bear Berry, and Indian tobacco, is a common shrub planted ornamentally outside apartment complexes and homes and a common wild plant found in western and northern America.

Kinnickinnick is a diuretic and urinary antiseptic, which makes it an effective cure for acute urinary tract infections. To make the medicine, just strip the leaves off the stem, put ‘em in a jar and douse in extremely strong alcohol with a little water mixed in. As per the late herbalist Michael R.S. Moore, the recipe is one part herb to five parts liquid, and the liquid should be 50% alcohol. To achieve this you could take 195 proof Everclear and dilute it with water.

Sten Porse/Wikipedia

Let the mixture sit for 6 weeks in the dark before using. Be careful only to take this medicine short-term and for serious infections, as it will irritate the bladder and kidneys if used more than a few days. The dosage, according to Moore, is 30 to 60 drops in 8 ounces of water, three times per day.

Kinnickinnick contains tannins, so it has an astringent action that can also be useful as a tea to treat diarrhea. However, you would need to dry the leaves first and apply some hard alcohol to them to make the medicinal compounds extractable in hot water, according to herb author Gregory Tilford.

Some people smoke the leaves. I have tried this and did not like the flavor.

The red berries of kinnickinnick are edible, though not particularly worthwhile. They are very mealy.

Another use is for kinnickinnick is to soak in a bath of the leaves for, um, shrinking hemorrhoids. I hope you don’t need to, but if you do, maybe this will come in handy.

To identify this plant, look for smooth, spoon-shaped leaves that are darker in color on the top than on the bottom, and that are attached to the twigs in an alternate pattern. This means pairs of leaves alternate rather than appear directly across from each other.

There is a closely related upright version of this plant, a pretty shrub/tree with distinctive red bark, Arctostaphylos manzanita, known as Manzanita, which can be used similarly for medicinal purposes. It is common in California. Photo here.

Thanks for reading. Tell your friends how to use free medicine. Share this post!

Posted in Eat Weeds, Urban Foraging, Wilderness Survival | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments »

Five Surprising Uses for Mullein

December 7, 2011 by Rebecca Lerner

Mullein on the Springwater Corridor

Mullein, Verbascum thapsus, is that common sidewalk weed you’ve no doubt seen around in disturbed places like vacant lots and overgrown yards. It grows in direct sunlight — or perhaps I should say, this being a Portland winter, direct cloudlight. The leaves are pale green and adorably fuzzy. Its first-year shape is a rosette, and then in its second year it sends up a tall flowering stalk with yellow blossoms. And by tall I mean really tall — eight feet tall! (See photo below).

I was just over 100 pages into Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, when I was surprised to find the characters using mullein for fishing. They put mullein in the water to stun the fish and send them floating to the surface, making it easy to net their catch en masse.

This works in real life. The seeds and flowers of mullein contain compounds called saponins. Saponins are soap-like and are highly toxic to insects and cold-blooded aquatic creatures. (They are harmless to people when cooked). If you find yourself in a survival situation and need to eat? Mullein saves the day.

You may have seen mullein in a health food store as an herbal tea for respiratory irritation. It is antimicrobial and antispasmodic for coughs.

Or you may have seen mullein flower oil sold as a remedy for ear infections. Here’s a great how to video on identifying mullein and making the flower oil yourself. The season for flower harvesting is summer, but you can pick the leaves and dry them for tea any time. I prefer the leaves from the first-year plants.

Here are two lesser-known uses for mullein:

* As a primitive candle: Drip the flower stalk in something flammable — such as wax or fat from a roadkill animal — and use it as a torch. I have seen this done, and it is awesome.

* As a smoking herb: Mullein is a respiratory medicine and so smoking the dried leaves is one way to bring that medicine directly into the lungs. You could also more recreationally use it as a soft, cooling, airy base for herbal smoking mixtures. It is very mildly sedating. I like to combine it with lemon balm and Russian sage, as I have written about before, but it’s great in many combinations.

Click here to learn more about historical Native American uses for mullein.

Second-year mullein

Warning: Be careful not to confuse mullein with the toxic plant known as foxglove, Digitalis sp., which has a similar structure (a basal rosette and a stalk) and also has a slightly fuzzy texture, though less fuzzy than mullein. Please have a look at foxglove here and you will see that foxglove has darker leaves and a different leaf surface. In flower confusion will not be an issue because foxglove flowers are shaped like little trumpets, which will make it more distinctive.

Also please be careful not to confuse mullein with the plant called lamb’s ear, Stachys byzantina. Lamb’s ear has a more similar color to mullein than foxglove but has a much silkier texture. Mullein is fuzzy, not silky. See a pic of lamb’s ear here.

Share the knowledge: Share this post!

Posted in Eat Weeds, Urban Foraging, Wilderness Survival | Tagged , , , | 24 Comments »

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