Redroot snow brush

Ceanothus velutinus, is in the Buckthorn Rhamnaceae family. It’s known as Snowbrush, because when it goes down with flowers, it's white as snow. It's also called sticky laurel, tobacco brush and red root. In western folk herbalism passed on face to face, all ceanothus are red roots. It has a range southernmost towards the jarbidge,  northward into Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. Like several other plants, within this tradition many know and use: long tailed ginger, wild sarsaparilla, red cedar, huckleberry, it's a marker, pillar boundary plant, that says, 'this is where i am', this is the place, this is the bioregion. 

Rosa woodsi, Lupinus sericeus, C. velvutinus

     Snowbrush as a redroot is an evergreen fire tolerant shrub which will sprout from seed or from the remaining root crown after fire. Ceanothus is a greek word for a spiny shrub and velutinus means soft, velvety, referring to the short dense silky hairs on the dull green underside of the leaf, the top of the leaf is sticky, shiny and appears wet, glossy green. Leaves remain on this woody shrub all winter.

     https://youtu.be/KYLQFUkNrro
 Another red root growing nearby is Ceanothus sanguineus, the red stemmed Ceanothus has deciduous leaves that are less resinous although still astringent. Snowbrush redroot can be identified by its shiny sticky resinous, aromatic leaves, widely oval with round tip, 3 inches long finely tooth around the margins.

Fine serrated leaf edge

      A distinctive 3 veined pattern meeting at the base of the leaf, similar to other ceanothus. These 3 parallel leaf veins, most visible on the underside of the leaf, are an identifying sign in the redroots I have met and worked with from the sky islands in southern Arizona through to the Selkirks of southern Cascadia. It grows in dense thickets about 20-30 feet around, and grows to about 4 foot tall from a dense root structure. In late spring early summer it has thick rounded clusters of white fragrant flowers, sweet with a slightly soapy fragrance. It is often found in burned areas, and is fire dependent as it resprouts from a burned root crown and from seeds are aided in germination by heat from a fire. 
     

Underside leaf 3 veins

       When in bloom you can smell the sweetness of the flowers, from quite a distance away if wind is blowing. The leaves themselves put out a resin-like spicy vanilla aroma similar to valerian root, with strong wintergreen tone especially when the sun is shining on the leaves, the leaf when crushed resembles the leaves and root of Asarum caudatum, our long tailed wild ginger.. Taking the white flowers, mixing them in a bucket of water will produce a white frothy soapy lather from the high saponin content and you can use it to freshen up while skinning dipping for a bath. It’s good on the hands, face, hair or skin, or washing t-shirts and clothes in a camp. The clothes will smell slightly sweet with out the heavy crazy scent of store bought soap which seems to attract mosquitoes like a magnet. In a camp the smell of dryer sheets and the chemical petroleum fake clean smell of laundry soap takes on a nauseating tone in the woods. 

Sun facing leaf

      Unlike other redroots C. fendleri or C greggi, which grow in the south in Arizona, and New Mexico, the leaves are large and brilliantly shiny, sticky, leathery and aromatic. The leaves are more warming, with noted astringency that is immediately apparent, with a slightly sweet, salty flavor, vanilla valerian root, with strong hints of wintergreen. Astringents tighten tissue, and refers to a degree of pucker from tannins that with the qualities of the plant act on the body to do certain things it normally does on its own, with a push in the way of that process. 
     In a personal face to face, western herbal tradition the wide wet leaf red roots are considered alterative for both hepatic or liver, which can address processing feeding, nourishing the body, taking food from an outside to an inside, through stimulation of the liver, and spleen-lymph addressing swelling, low grade unresolving cycling fevers, chronic low energy and resisting wellness and recovery from both acute eruptions and low grade chronic imbalance in the recovery mode. Both bloods, red and white work both to move vitality and to resolve waste, move stuff and get rid of stuff. Consider combining snowbush with either or both dandelion and Mahonia roots to address the alterative action within the liver. In a respiratory issue you would want a lung mover to resolve phlegm like lobelia or a strong aromatic. Although in the red roots, as a stand alone remedy, snowbrush leaf in a tea has quite a bit of focus for respiratory grips and colds. 

Ceanothus velutinus- teatree snowbrush red root

     As an alterative in congested blood, both red and white bloods, we have an accumulation of waste products in the body which can not be effectively eliminated. This accumulation of waste products in the tissues clogs the elimination channels of the white blood of the spleen and the red blood of the liver. This backup leads to a backup and accumulation of fluid, swelling in the body, and it also has low energy which if chronic, effect the personality. So you have a person physically sidelined by illness which gradually eroded the vitality of the spirit. In general dampness can be seen in swollen lymph nodes, edema, swelling, and puffiness. As this new normal of congestion becomes the baseline, the inherent intelligence of the body attempts to rid itself of this sluggish damp. Often in accumulated dampness there is a low grade fever, chronic infections, chronic fatigue, low energy and tiredness. The tissues can not eliminate waste and the channels of elimination become clogged. While at the same time the building restorative pathways are blocked, its congested, things aren't moving. The vital intelligence of the body attempts to roast and burn away the accumulation causing a damp heat chronic condition, a secondary damp heat condition manifested as a physical condition. We have to be alert to dry constitutional conditions that would caution using drying red roots and adapt formulas according to constitutional conditions of the person rather than a one size fits all approach. The approach has to be fluid, creative and flexible based on what is happening with the person. Flexible based on what is actually happening as in descriptive rather what should be happening as prescriptive in a diagnosis based approach. The key is process rather than substance. In diagnosis models, the diagnosis overcomes the condition, in folk herbalism the condition overcomes the diagnosis.
   

     Snowbush redroot as a big leaf variety has more warming energetics than southwest redroots. As a remedy or tonic it is strongly water based in use. Meaning, it's useful as a tea, as a water based herbal. Both the leaf and root are strong medicine as a tea or infusion. It is heavier on aromatics with a spicy sweet astringent taste, compared to many other red roots. In matching a plant to a condition, you will be looking for stagnancy in condition. The spleen is the key to understanding snowbush and is the largest lymph node in the body. Snowbush is a valuable herb to have in good supply for most any formula. The leaves are used to resolve a fever by allowing heat to be dissipated, especially in round circular fevers that cycle coming and going. Many red root species do not have such a strong component in the leaf. When we hear of Ceanothus americanus leaf being used a leaf tea plant, it is hard to think of Southwest redroot as a tea plant. Southwest redroots leaf is often nearly tasteless with just a hint of astringency. Eastern Ceanothus called New Jersey tea is comparable to Snowbush. Both are big leafed, moist wet, north country aromatic forest plants with an immediate taste. Snowbush is so aromatic you can smell the aromatic sweet spiciness when sun shines on the leaf. This spicy sweet soapy scent is even more pronounced when it flowers, you can smell the flowers from a hundred yards away. The flowers of southwest redroots don't have this vibrant sweetness, when they are in flower it's more soapy. Ceanothus interigimus as a southwest red root comes close to Snowbush yet it's nowhere near the big leafed varieties. Ceanothus sanguineus, the red stem ceanothus which shares the same ecosystem here with a softer deciduous large leaf doesn't match the leaf medicine content and usability of snowbush either, probably because the leaf of snowbush accumulates active aromatic constituents. The leaf hanging on the bush all winter above the snow in the north gives snowbush a different dynamic than the in out breath of most root medicine family energetics. 

Snowbush red root meadow

     As a folk herb, and what I mean by that are herbs you pick and use with your kith kin and family, not store bought herbs which can come from anywhere and appear in a store, in a bottle with a shiny label. Mostly with store bought herbs you are buying the bottle and the label. So as a folk herb, snowbrush redroot is used for boggy warm swollen lymph glands, adjacent to the ears and neck, in the groin and armpits. The kind of dull achy feeling when you are low energy and recovering from some kind of bug. Useful in chronic conditions like low level infectious states that linger and don’t readily resolve, stuck conditions that don’t seem to move, that often manifest with a lethargic spleen. 

     Although I call it snow bush redroot, the leaves and stems are especially good in this variety with both aromatic and astringent qualities. The root is more astringent and potent, when gathering the root you’ll have to decide if you want to shave the red outer layer and just use it, as the larger roots are pretty knarly, regardless you want to process roots quickly as they become super rock hard. You can also mix up a batch using the leaf and root, a whole plant medicine which is probably the best way to go when on a medicine making run.

    Folk herbalists consider this a blood purifier focusing both on the red blood and on the white clear lymph blood which goes through the spleen, lungs and liver. Something like swollen tonsils that produces a blood poisoning with back up into the lungs, snowbrush redroot would be good for that, sluggishness with phlegm, to clear that dampness. Or a uterine congestion with painfulness in the breats, long dragging heavy periods. Or a chronic damp heat in the liver causing distention backing up into the pelvis with clogged elimination and constipation. You may want to add Mahonia and dandelion roots to the red root for this condition.  With this red root you’ll get the astringent tannins that tighten and tone tissue and the saponins that lubricate and help restore flow and create movement in conditions that tend to go damp and stagnant. It helps to balance the thick stickiness of the blood in stagnant conditions so the blood can do what it does better, move stuff around. As you recover from illness a lot of extra waste products are released that need to be flowed out, filtered out rather than just recirculation around in a funk. 

Ceanothus velutinus in flower, early June

     Snowbush red root acts strongly on both spleen and liver to get both the white lymph blood and the red heart blood moving and circulating. A strong aromatic red root not only has astringency, it also has a way to transform, eliminate damp. The body is like a doughnut with a hole in the middle, so that the inside of the doughnut is actually the outside layer. You can think of your mouth, oral cavity, throat, esophagus, trachea, lungs, large and small intestines – from one perspective they are inside the body, from another perspective they are the outside of the body, like the dough nut hole. Redroot enables this positive negative charge between the inside and outside of the body, what comes in and what goes out, on the level of the lymph and blood to be regulated and balanced so that waste elimination on the cellular level can occur. The inside and outside of the cell membranes can maintain the coming and going that needs to occur. 
   

Snowbrush patch

       Snowbush redroot helps to thin thick sluggish sticky blood so it flows better, reaches everywhere it needs to go. When the blood is too thick after a heavy fatty meal, all the blood goes to the center of the body, this can cause a liver stagnant headache, with a blood shortage to the brain. In these kinds of conditions you can add dandelion root and Mahonia  to red root to stimulate the liver to loosen up the blood and release bile so the fat can be broken down. 

    
     Red root is a tonic for the spleen and white blood lymph in sub acute chronic condition of infection, it can added to many formulas including sore throat and quincy with throat pain and swollen tonsils and tender lymph nodes at the throat. Especially once recovery is occurring but there’s been a set back. This often occurs after taking antibiotics and you have a quick recovery, then several days later after finishing the antibiotics, it feels like it’s coming back. During an acute stage red root can be taken in high doses, you’ll have to experiment but believe me you can take a lot when you’re sick. The root pieces can be boiled two or three times as long as your getting color. Make sure you dice up your red root as soon as you can, while you still can because in short time it turns into stone that you won't be able to work at all. Big pieces that you can't cut can be dumped in a pot of water and boiled for medicine. Thanks for reading and may the road come up to greet you! and as always...

Red Root, Ocotillo and an approach towards the spiritual heart by PaulManski

     

Red Root: Ceanothus spp. Rhamnaceae (Buckthorn family) Buckbrush, because deer may and do browse it. Growing in  a 6200ft low elevation coniferous forest. It grows in piñon juniper woodlands to open pine forests. Ceanothus fendleri Three parallel leaf veins, a central vein from the base to tip of leaf, a central longitudinal vein with two symmetric veins, together in a trio. In our southwest the leaf size varies greatly from species to species. fendleri presents as a small thorny shrub with narrowly oblong leaves about 3/4's of an inch in length. 

     Ceanothus greggii, or desert ceanothus is found at lower elevations. In flower it is fragrant and the plant is showy with white puffy flowers. It tends to not have the three parallel veins and the lacks the thorns of fendleri, in addition having  grey, more white tinged branches. It tends to grow at lower elevations inhabiting a zone called Arizona chaparral- which is not to be confused with the herb of commerce sometimes called chaparral, Larrea tridentata.

Associated with scrub oak Q. turbinella, manzanita, silk tassel, cliffrose and hollyleaf buckthorn.

      A third type of Ceanothus is C. integerrimus

which appears more montane, growing at higher elevations with higher precipitation, the leaves reflect this more abundant water supply and are larger, it has a mild 3 veined presentation, and it lacks the leathery waxy quality of our other Ceanothus. 

      Ceanothus has a history in western herbal medicine notably during the time of it's flowering from the 1830's to the early part of the 20th century. In the colonial period Red Root,  was called 'New Jersey tea' and was a substitute for the imported Chinese tea which was in short supply, as in the revolutionary act of dumping tea into the Boston harbor, the Boston Tea Party and was considered patriotic to part ways with the British, during the Revolutionary War time.

     "The Family Flora and Materia Medica", by Peter P. Good, A.M written in 1847 speaks of it being astringent and slightly bitter. Useful as an astringent in dysentery and as a febrifuge in Mexico. Good describes it as appropriate for sore throats, and the congested symptoms of impaired circulation in the throat area, here we are building a case for its use in the lymph transport of waste material from the throat into the surrounding tissue. In addition red root was described as an expectorant in relation to lung congestion. He also acknowledged its use in the portal system and uterine/menstrual pelvic stagnation.

     "Specific Symptomatology—It has a specific influence upon the portal circle, influencing the circulation. In lymphatic patients, with sluggish circulation and inactivity of the liver of a chronic nature, with doughy-sallow skin, puffy and expressionless face, pain in the liver or spleen with hypertrophy of either or both organs, and constipation, it has a direct and satisfactory influence, especially if the conditions are of malarial origin...or in general glandular disarrangements, the agent is indicated. Bronchitis, chronic pneumonitis and asthma are found present with the above general symptoms. Ovarian and uterine irregularities with such conditions will also be benefited by its use." -American Materia Medica:

Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy: Developing the ...
 By Finley Ellingwood, John Uri Lloyd 1915.

    While current south west herbalists, strongly influenced by Michael Moore, tend to view Red root as a lymphatic remedy, aiding the portal liver system, which was acknowledged by the eclectics of the time.

The herbalists of the period saw in red root a remedy for..." with my application of this shrub to diseases of the lungs. In 1833, while out botanizing one day, my attention was directed to this shrub, by its beauty while in full bloom, and the peculiar appearance of the root. I gave it the name of wild snowball, knowing no other name for it at that time. I tasted and chewed some of it, and I conceived the idea that it would be good for coughs. I gathered some of the shrub, dried it, and added some of it to my compound, used at that time for coughs. I was successful in treating coughs...In such cases I keep a syrup to suit. It is made as follows: Take ceanothus two parts, asclepias tuberosa one part, boil down till you have a very strong decoction; strain, and add refined sugar, and boil down to form a thick syrup; add the tincture of Tolu, to give a flavor, and bottle. Dose—one tablespoonful three times a day." -The New England Botanical and Surgical Journal, by Calvin Newton MD 1849.

     Besides the possibility of combining red root with pleurisy root for lung congestion, it is fascinating to see the renaissance scientist Dr Newton exploring the fields and forests, directly tasting the herbs and plants and developing an intuitive treatment from the forests of New England. 
     In my own studies of herbal medicine I was led both by intuition and direct suggestion from two teachers I had been studying with,

Michael Cottingham from Silver City and John Slattery

from Tucson, to combine two south west native plants. Specifically Red root, Ceanothus greggii and ocotillo, Fouquieria splendens. 
     First an attempt to grasp systems of the body in relation to the lymphatic system. John Slattery quote, "Putting ocotillo and red root putting them together, and I could give that happily to a vast portion of the population and in a subtle way enhance their immune response because of how it clears stagnation in the lymph, because how it mobilizes how waste products are removed and facilitates transport throughout the body." This is possibly what Dr Calvin Newton in 1849 had encountered and utilized in his formula to treat  tenacious coughs, and lung stagnation, expediting the transport of accumulated waste products in the lung. 
    Herbalist Paul Bergner writes, From The Healing Power of Echinacea and Goldenseal (Prima 1997), "The Eclectics used red root for stagnancy of the portal venous system.

The is the series of veins that carries nutrients from the digestive tract to the liver for processing before it can enter the general circulation. Like other venous blood, portal blood has no pulse or pressure. It also has to move upwards, against gravity, to get to the liver. A sedentary lifestyle, a heavy diet, intestinal disorders, and liver stagnancy can all cause this network to become stagnant. This also effect immunity because blood from the spleen, a lymphatic organ that filters the blood, must also drain through the portal system. Key Eclectic indications for the use of red root were a swollen spleen and a stagnant liver. It was used by soldiers during the Civil War for spleen inflammations that accompany malaria."
     

Darcy Blue an herbalist currency living near Flagstaff AZ writes, describing the energetics of ocotillo, writes that ,"Ocotillo is a warming and mildly drying lymphatic and blood/fluid mover. It has an affinity for the tissues and region of the pelvis and liver/portal vein system, and the respiratory system." It feels natural to combine red root and ocotillo, they both have affinity for the liver and lymph, ethnographical literature describe both as treating coughs, and Charles Kane, writes,

"traditional use of ocotillo among hispanic New Mexicans has been for sore throats, tonsillitis and to stimulate menses." Almost exactly as the eclectics described red root. 
     The idea and real quality of an organ system being stuck, like congestion in the lung, bronchitis, pneumonia, inflammation heat, swelling  has a psychological component. It produces a mental effect. Pelvic congestion, pain, stuck menses, painful cramps- these bodily states impinge on our thought processes. There is a way of being well and a way of being sick. A disease state within the body calls forth a subtle mental attitude. Of course we have to distinguish between chronic and acute. The length of time the disease state has effected consciousness. So that the treatment of disease is also the adjustment of mental states. 

      Herbs and plants like red root and ocotillo are both 'heart' medicines, medicines of the emotional spiritual heart. These medicines while not 'psychological' deal with our healing journey. They address the soul and our way of becoming in the place. Plants can be a way back to a place of balance. Our bodies may be out of balance with disease yet our hearts and minds are also stuck in the paradigm of disease states. Part of the process of healing is acknowledging the psyche and mind states through plant medicines.

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Currently I went back and found a quart of Ceanothus integerrimus I had fresh tinctured earlier this year. I had forgotten how astringent and sweet it was, with the strong taste of wintergreen. I decided I need to go back to my herbal medicines. I also pulled out the red root i harvested and mixed up a batch of 50% ocotillo bark and 50% red root, and will begin using it again.

I realized my heart is in need of healing and I felt I need to return to this herbal work for obvious reasons.