Batamote

Batamote
     Signs and symptoms. In terms of healing and an etiology of dis-ease. How it presents. A puffy red raised warm to touch area, painful, uncertain, scary. discomfort. Bacharis glutinous (salicfolia) seep willow. 

                                              

... as a girl of thirteen she was visiting her mother's family in Sonora for the first time alone apart from the rest of her family. During the night she had been bit on the right lower forearm by an insect, maybe a spider. She wasn't sure. When she woke she was worried and afraid because she was visiting her grandfather's and had planned on staying a week and her Mom would come to take her back to Tucson. The ranch was a long way from everything. They had good food, water, horses but no telephone. Everything was different at the ranch. Time moved slower. She was happy. Now this. Her wrist was achy, warm, red and swollen. 

                                         

        When looking at a map it is important to find, you are here, where you are on the map. Then you can pick out a route, a path. Then the map makes sense. Plants at their most fundamental element are memories of place. She showed her arm to her grandfather and told him she was sad because she was making problems and would have to leave and go back to the city to see a doctor. Her grandfather was Yaqui with knowledge of healing plants. They walked together to the little stream to the horse coral. He showed her a plant growing there, and told her not to worry. He would make her better, with batamote. He showed her how to gather batamote, a plant growing near the wash at the side of their house where the horses watered. He placed the fresh leaves of batamote on the painful red swollen arm. Holding them in place with a piece of cotton cloth wrapped loosely so the skin could breathe. Plants link us and pull us in to a place saying to us, "This is where you are." "You are here." 
                                   
          Batamote, Baccharis glutiosa, is a southwest abundant perennial woody stem plant growing where water is close to the surface. A desert-riparian plant, desert riparian being used in the sense of an intermittent dry/wet stream usually dry. That may have cottonwoods, bottonbrush, Dodenaea, sycamores, mesquite, palo Verde, cat claw and an assortment of long thin lancelot leafed waxy aromatic plants. As such batamote initiates healing movement when applied to the surface of skin. It is a well tolerated and a useful medicine box plant. It's important when moving on a journey to have a map and orient yourself on the map. i am here. It furthers to have somewhere to go. 
                                

     En el siglo XVI, Francisco Hernández refiere: "resuelve admirablemente los tumores que han penetrado en las articulaciones o en los nervios y calma cuales quiere dolores quitando su causa. Las raíces machacadas, extraen lo que se ha clavado en la carne, provocan notablemente la orina y limpian su conducto, alivian a los que sufren cólicos, quitan las manchas en la cara, curan la erupción de la cabeza de los niños y la de todo el cuerpo, quitan las fiebres provocando sudor, reducen el bazo y mitigan el dolor; quitan la flatulencia, curan el empacho y resuelven los tumores.     

                                        

       In the sixteenth century, Francisco Hernández wrote, "it resolves admirably the congestion that has penetrated the joints or nerves and calms pain by removing its cause. The roots crushed, extract what has been stuck in the flesh. It encourages urination and cleanses the kidney.  It relieves those who suffer colic and empacho. With infants it can cure the red rash of the children's head and the whole body. It helps the body with productive fever by causing sweat. It reduces an enlarged spleen.  Remove the gas, flatulence and bloating of the stomach in empacho, curing the discomfort of the hard ball"   -translation by Paul Manski

       " Empacho is a term used in the south west and refers to stomach distress, Empacho is when food gets stuck in the intestines or accumulates around the stomach. It often manifests with a blocking in the epigastric area.
                                     

    There is a special type of emapacho that occurs with nursing mothers and their babies. Women and girls are often nursing, feeding babies and both their state of mind and what they are doing influences their milk. This can create colic in the baby drinking the mommas milk. Therefore fruits that are "cold" like oranges and watermelons, should not be consumed by pregnant women whose nature at that time is "hot". Likewise they should avoid windy places because the wind can enter the milk. In this sense, the ingestion of "cold" or "hot" food in the nursing mother can cause milk "curds" and harm the infant, just as if being in the sun too much she in excess or suffers a "cooling off" when wash or take a bath. Consequence of this is the "enlechamiento"  a variety of 'colic' that occurs when the child eats breast milk under the conditions listed, or mom offers her milk too frequently, too much,  or Mom nurses her baby after suffering a surprise event (shock) or a stressful event. In all cases, the milk is in lumps, and produces colic in the baby. The baby will be filled with gas and crying, if it progresses the baby will lose sleep and lose weight.
     If the Mom is frightened, or mistreated by her husband, if there is a lot of yelling in the house, this can spoil the milk. If the woman is angry or jealous she may spill bile into the milk, creating empacho in the baby. Empacho can also be caused by older women beyond child bearing years who is jealous of the Mom with her baby. Jealous of her youth and beauty, she may intentionally or unintentionally stare at the Mom or kiss the baby and create a special type of empacho which can be helped by this remedio, but it may require a cleansing by someone able to do so."
       
 http://pgmanski.blogspot.com/2016/10/el-empacho-remedio-nebada-poleo-hinojo.html      
                                  

     
        Batamote drew out the poison, soothed the pain and within a few hours swelling and redness was decreased. There was improvement. Things were manageable, coming back into balance. She continued to apply fresh batamote leaf directly to her skin, covering it with cotton to hold the leaves in place, just as her grandfather showed her. She liked that she was able to take care of herself. She decided that day that she wanted to help other people get better. She wanted to be like her grandfather. She walked down to the water and picked a few small branches and stripped the leaves placing them in bag.
                                        

    She showed me a small mark on her arm where she was bitten. To be honest i didn't see anything. She saw it though and remembered. It was still visible to her 50 years later. The wound, her grandfather, the ranch with horses, the cool water, the batamote and the healing plants.
                              

   Batamote is a plant with many uses, it draws out poison from insect stings applied topical as a poultice. It is anti-inflammatory. It grows along seasonal desert riparian zones creeks and washes. It's leaves are lacerate, like a lance or blade, pointed, soft with fine serrations along the edges. willow like, sometimes called a seep willow, though not a Salix or willow. An Asteracea, sunflower family member. As a hair rinse/wash it is said to increase hair growth and make the hair shiny. It helps women maintain a full head of hair and stimulates the hair follicle. Another topical use is the dried leaves powdered and applied to the toes for fungal infection, also washing the toes in batomote.
    Internally batamote addresses empacho much like poleo, Nebada, Poleo,  Menta de Lobo and Hinojo. It also acts on the stomach to re-regulate appropriate stomach acid and aid healing in GI ulcers similar to Conyza canadensis, by nourishing the delicate mucosa of the GI tract damaged by overactive colitis and chrohn's disease. Addresses the issue of leaky gut and restoring homeostasis. 

     

How it presents. What it feels like. Plants are graceful, grace abiding and compassionate. Often illness produces a "where am i?", uncertainty. What is going on?  'Lost but now i'm found'- plants then become amazing grace. Needing to go nowhere else. Meeting a disease process. Able to stay where you are.

                                      

                               

References:

Hernández, F. 1959 (1571-1576); Martínez, M. 1969 (1934); Sociedad Farmacéutica de México. 1952

   

El Empacho Remedio: Nebada, Poleo, Hinojo, Menta de Lobo and Hinojo, by Paul Manski 

http://pgmanski.blogspot.com/2016/10/el-empacho-remedio-nebada-poleo-hinojo.html

Oral Field Notes John Slattery Tucson, AZ 

Medicinal Plants of the American Southwest

Charles W Kane Lincoln Town Press 2016

Oral Field Notes Michael Cottingham Siver City, NM

Oral Field Notes Amy Garcia Tucson, AZ

Dodonaea viscosa

Dodonaea viscosa and Bio-Actigeneration       

****Note: Before gathering any plant. Know and study that plant. Identify the plant!! Know that Dodonaea, hop tree has deadly look alike plants growing frequently, especially in urban environments, in the same habitat. That can easily be mistaken of one another. In other words don't gather or use this plant until you can tell the difference. The plant i am talking can kill- Until you can tell them apart, leave them alone.***     

Dodonaea viscosa is a ubiquitous plant. Ranked one of the top four most versatile herbs in any first aid kit. Top three herbs for liver restoration on the same level of Milk Thistle. And, and yes, a cool name for a baby if you're PG or heading that way, or plan to adopt- use it, for a name that is- be original. A power plant, an adaptogenist actualizer. Use the plant, use the name. No body cares what you do anyway. Nice baby name. Or legally change your name, or a new ... tattoo, I'm Dodonaea. The plant tells me, please use me. Don't pass me by. Please. 'Hey you!', 'Yeah you.', come on over. As you get older time speeds up, so don't wait. At a certain point there is a convergence that smells like adaptogenic activation across the board, in and out,
Up and down, inside outside, internal external - no need to go any further hop seed bush.
                          

    Dodonaea, named for a 16^th century Flemish botanist, named after a man living in the only place where it doesn't grow- go figure. Viscosa meaning the young leaves are sticky. Makes sense. Belonging to family Sapindaceae soap berry. Also known as hops bush by taste, though unrelated to Humulus. Kinda of resembles wild hops when it dries in that both are papery, the strobes of hops and the seeds of hop bush. Used by early Australian settlers for beer brewing, the same in Mexico-America because of it’s bitter hop-like flavor. Does it taste like hops? It is bitter with a little warming in there.
                                       

   It grows extensively in Arizona from the Superstitions through Phoenix, diagonally south into Tucson and then into the Sierra Madre south to Sonora. Stepping out of climate controlled box you’ll see it and say, ‘Oh yeah, I know that one.’ It’s also used as an urban landscape plant because it’s green all year, pretty and lush and drought tolerant. So you'll see it around town as a hedge along city streets. See it in the washes. See it on the rocky slopes. It's there, trust me. You can find people who say, invasive, others say native. Pan-global, as in everywhere. It's here and not going anywhere.
                                             

     It’s a perennial shrubby evergreen bushy shrub. Hard to miss as it’s 3feet to 7-8 feet high. So it's a big loud in your face plant. It doesn't hide, it's in the open. Dodonaea has come out, showing tattoos, doesn't need special soil or conditions. I take that back. It's a desert droughty plant that likes hot and drought. Got snow? You're out of the loop. OK? The leaves are striking green. Are the leaves pretty? Yes the leaves are pretty. They are sleek, long, thin like a acrobat or yogini clothes hanger model, with thick auburn hair who can bend backwards all the way down, smelling like a mix between patchouli, BO and youthful fertility. Leaves with lines long and thin with a single center prominent vein or simple, essentially sessile, linear to oblanceolate. The seeds are winged like a big saltbrush wing, 3-4 lobes not consistent, with a papery covering. It’s in washes and rocky slopes. Can you find it where I live? Probably. Maybe. I don't know where you live.                      

    I learned about this plant first from somebody special, an original and maybe the original bioregional herbalist who coined the term, which many tried then tried to steal unsuccessfully. this person often working out of teaching Tucson, Arizona and the sky islands. Please enjoy, play guess the herbalist here. ???

     Dodonaea viscosa is a rare pan-global native medicinal plant: native and prolific in Arizona SW, Australia, Africa, Tasmania, Hawaii, Asia. It’s hard to find a more plentiful underused plant than Dodonaea viscosa. The literature of research is extensive both from an ethnobotanical and scientific standpoint. When describing Dodonaea it literally sounds like many different plants. Scientific study reads like a mix up, a wish mash of several plants, partially because they are referring to the wholeplant outside of commercial standardized extract.  

     Where ever it grows whether Asia, Australia, Africa or the hot desert southwest of North America, native people have used it for basically similar uses. Everything. What native people? Everyone. Look don't talk native  a typical mongrel American who can only trace  pedigree back to my Mom, and she is dead, what do I know about native? Nothing. Please.

     What medicinal uses? Everything. Which again makes it hard to categorize. Imagine a plant for sprains, pin worms, tooth ache, soothing skin wash, GI ulcers. How about weight loss and orgasm? Sorry those are two things it doesn't do...but wait...In oil as a salve, water as a tea, alcohol as a tincture, direct as a poultice. What? 

     Movement. Relaxation. Liver protectant more protective than milk thistle. Respiratory. Anti-bacterial. Anti-fungal, inside, outside- plentiful, not at risk, attractive but no shaved head sides with bangs yet. Yet we may get that soon, hopefully. What?

    When reading the literature, then reviewing my hand written notes from JJ’s field school, I find myself saying, “Wait, did I mix it up with another plant?’, surely it can’t do all that? And I ask why would a plant with so many vital uses be virtually unused, unheard of, and unknown? 
                                          

   The only answer I have is that lives and information has grown so insulated and groupthink-affirming, fake-news that herbal info just snow balls into cliché sound bites of predictability. blah blah blah. He said. She said. I bought it from superfood Activator Snake oil tribe. Wow. Sorry. Can’t be bought. Can’t be sold. Can't buy it ha ha ha. 

      There are true informational walls based on how can I sell this? It’s difficult for many to use a plant that has no monetary value. Well you can use it and it is worthless. You can use it and explore what it does without attaching a dollar amount. You can use it without worrying about depleting it, cause it's everywhere and not going anywhere. If anything it has an expanding range. Is it native to North America? Experts say it is, do you believe experts? I do rarely sometimes.

    Few are going directly to the plants. Remember there is no U/you in few. So just do it. Step out of the box. Grab a couple handful of the new tender recent growth. Dry it. Taste it. Salve it. Tincture it. Try it. Check out Dodonaea If you’re a person who is going to the plants directly, way to go. Continue. Advice on use:I can tell you what not to do because I have failed so often. I can not tell what to do because I have succeeded so infrequently. 

     So please work on removing sound bite fake information: What? Hypericum St John’s wort = herbal prozac, skin sensitivity for blondes. Reishi: Adaptogen, activator, super food, cures cancer, female viagra. The tendency to description of plants with a price tag. Rarely refer to anything except money toilet tornadoes with slick predictively smooth sale pitch. Always pointing toward, ‘Who said it?’, rarely, “What did they say?” Frequently go to the plants find out from them what they are for. 
   Wait, going to the plants, "Sounds dangerous." It is dangerous. So use caution. Educate yourself because there are poisonous look alikes. Poisonous look alikes? Yes, Definitely. Yes deadly poisonous look alike also a landscape plant, Oleander. So if you can't ID it, don't gather. First educate yourself.
    Go dangerous, step out of the box. Fall on your face. Use Dodonea to nurse you're bruises and scrapes. Doesn't care about body arm pit hair or if you can be smelled from 25 feet away. Likes wind. Encourages movement.

     While reviewing my notes I kept saying, ‘C’mon Jay you’re making that up.’ At a certain point you got to make stuff up, it's about the plants. We’re a community of entertainers.

      Liver gall bladder stimulating and simultaneously relaxing. Relaxation sinew and ligament, spreading and softening, looser. Squeezing out bile, increased peristalsis. 
             

   Taste:YOU taste it, don’t let me typecast it for you. Acrid, pungent slight sweetness along with bitterness. Resembles Larrea tridenta in taste, not as sweet. Warming bitter, yes. The perfect bitter? Close.

Carminative- dispels gas

Antispasmodic- smooths out muscles similar to estafiate. Better than Silk Tassel, ho ho ho. You salivate, movement, relax. Wait did you say antispasmodic, like silk tassel, and pin worms parasites? wow, are we talking lyme yet? close.

                 

Topically, in Sonora and world wide for scrapes, wounds, as a wash, fomentation, poultice for sprains.  Also to soothe skin. Is it anti-microbial on the skin? Yes. Helps healing with rashes abrasions? Yes.

Liver restorer: Silymarin milk thistle a standard against what other things are measured for liver. Liver enzymes to normal homeostasis. Enhanced detoxification of liver.  These hepatoprotective effects were better than the positive control silymarin. 

Respiratory and topical:Antifungal- chronic respiratory infections in SW from dust and soil born organisms, adjunct to Chillopsis. (Desert willow) Live in Arizona? Got a cough with athletes foot? Mixing up a batch of stinky kombuchu candida down below? You are good to go.

       

Internally: promising antiulcer activity. Also inhibited acid secretion to prevent ulcer aggravation. Would combine well with Canadian fleabane for GI gut health. Is it gluten free? Totallly.

Wound healing_ as a wash

Seeds- analgesic: toothe ache

Anti-inflammatory did I say anti-inflammatory? 

The antimicrobial activity inhibition of candida albicans in studies. three Gram negative bacteria: Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhi, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Both for toothache and candida, mouth issues immuno compromised HIV patients.

So what will you use it for? Probably better does it work for you? Or What can’t you use it for? Find it, use it, don't abuse it.

  Reference:

John Slattery:Tucson, AZ hand written Field Notes

Charles Kane, Medicinal Plants of American SouthWest, Lincoln Town Press 2011-2016

Siddiqui, A. A. 1998 Chemical and pharmacological evaluation of Dodonaea viscosa Asian Journal of Chemistry, 10, 14-16. 

DODONAEA VISCOSA LINN.-AN OVERVIEW 

M.SANDHYA RANI*, PROF.RAO.S.PIPPALLA*, PROF KRISHNA MOHAN** 

A review on Dodonaea viscosa: A potential medicinal plant Prof Dr Ali Esmail Al-Snafi 

Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Thi qar University, Iraq. 

Hautriwaic acid as one of the hepatoprotective constituent of Dodonaea viscosa

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Medicinal Activity of Dodonaea viscosa —A preliminary study by Andrew Pengelly  2008