Category: plants

Good Plants: Goldenrod

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn plants, writing

“Goldenrods take the blame for a lot of allergies, but most of it’s undeserved. There are people allergic to goldenrod and they should not use the plant. However, most of the allergies are caused by ragweed and other similar flowering plants. Goldenrod are pollinated by bees and don’t release pollen into the air like ragweeds.  ” – “The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies.”

Solidago nemoralis, old field goldenrod

Goldenrod has medicinal uses or is eaten in salads, however, you need to make sure you can tell the difference between them and similar plants such as groundsel and ragwort before consuming them. Please don’t take any natural remedies without consulting an herbalist.

According to Healthline, “To reap its benefits, people consume the parts of the plant that grow above ground — particularly the flowers and leaves You can buy goldenrod as a tea or dietary supplement as well. The tea may have a somewhat bitter aftertaste, and some prefer it lightly sweetened.”

Goldenrod adds nitrogen to the soil, so it makes a good plant to place at the edge of your yard, if not in the garden.

Web MD reports that “Goldenrod contains chemicals that might increase urine flow and reduce swelling. It might also kill bacteria and fungi. People use goldenrod for enlarged prostate, kidney stones, urinary tract infections (UTIs), tooth plaque, and many other conditions, but there is no good scientific evidence to support these uses. “

Goldenrod, which blooms in the fall, is a native Florida wildflower whose scientific name (Solidago) means “to make whole.”

—Malcolm

Bad Plants – White Snakeroot

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn plants, writing

“Milk sickness, also known as tremetol vomiting or, in animals, as trembles, is a kind of poisoning, characterized by trembling, vomiting, and severe intestinal pain, that affects individuals who ingest milk, other dairy products, or meat from a cow that has fed on white snakeroot plant, which contains the poison tremetol.” – Wikipedia

White Snakeroot

Milk sickness, which likely killed Nancy Hanks, Abraham Lincoln’s mother, used to be prevalent in newly settled areas in the Middle West before farmers knew White Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima) with its charming and showy flowers was toxic and that when cattle rate it, they passed the poison along to humans.

Anna Pierce Hobbs Bixby is credited with discovering the plant’s toxicity of the plant to livestock and humans with the help of a Shawnee medicine woman.  She died about 1870, but her research about white snakeroot wasn’t published until the 1920s.

Amy Stewart, in Wicked Plants, writes that Bixby campaigned to eradicate the plant but that  “her attempts to notify authorities fell on deaf ears, perhaps because women doctors were not taken seriously.”

Like other poisonous, but beautiful, wildflowers, white snakeroot is often used in gardens featuring other dangerous ornamentals such as moonflowers and foxglove.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of folk magic novels set in Florida.