Agastache

Agastache urticifolia

Agastache

Agastache urticifolia, horse mint, giant hyssop mint,  Lamiaceae family. Greek Agastache: again-much, Stacey's-ear of grain referring to the flower and seeds. Urticifolia meaning nettle-like.  An erect perennial mint. Strongly squarestemmed in cross section at woody base. Flowers are dense spike like terminal inflorescence clusters. Calyx is tinged lavender, corolla petals irregular bent arched sloping tubular, upper lip is notched. Leaves are arrow shaped, alternate, toothed and creased upwards, larger towards base with a longer petiole. The leaves and flowers are skunky scented mint aromatic fragrant. 

Agastache

     Agastache is a biospirit interface plant used by biospirit folk to increase wellbeing.  The taste is hot, spicy, sweet and warming. Not as fiery, peppery hot as more southern agastache . It grows in transition open meadows in full sun with ninebark, Rosa, Oregon grape. It's circumpolar Eurasia with a wide range from arizona mountains north to British Columbia.

       Agastache is useful in bioreregional biospirit materia medica. Like other mints it is diaphoretic and will encourage sweating, urination, movement in a initial stuck fever. As such it mixes with blue vervain tea at the first sign of a cold due to the polysaccharide water based immunostimulant qualities, and like blue vervain it has a mildly relaxing sedative sleepy quality. You can add drops of tincture to blue vervain tea. It will function as a biospirit servant herb to circulate vervain through the tissue and increase movement of blocked conditions during restful sleep. 

     It can be used with women to promote movement in stuck crampy periods and has usefulness in a formula for cramping and pain with silk tassels, viburnum and red bane berry as a formula. It has mild antispasmodic quality. 

     Due to it's relaxant nerve tonifying quality it can be combined in formula for loose anxiety and agitation and unsettledness with episodes and outbursts with no specific cause. It combines well individually with St. John's wort, bugle weed, skullcap, and Pedicularis. Combine agastache with any of the above herbs in a ratio of 4:1, 75% base to 25% agastache. To these above 4:1 formulas 10-15 % anemone pulsatilla can be added to any of the above for sudden oncoming worry and episodic fretting. 

Agastache