Desert Tobacco, Nicotiana obtusifolia

 DESERT  TOBACCO, dwelling on the plants...

...dwelling on the plants...I guess I am focused and obsessed with the world around me, this summer 2022 our native desert tobacco was blooming everywhere in the lower desert after abundant moisture from summer monsoon rains.

NICOTIANA  OBTUSIFOLIA  (NICOTIANA  TRIGONOPHYLLA)

Nightshade Family, Solanaceae

Desert tobacco is a multifaceted native plant that covers perennial/biennial/annual herb presentations. Nicotiana obtusifolia is a native plant growing in most western US states, in variable forms within its range.   

      Currently observed blooming north quadrant, upper sonoran desert ecosystem, blooming late August in wide profusion. Desert tobacco inhabits and surrounds the washes, arroyos, dry river pathways of the desert.It is  abundant in the somewhat occasional, ephemeral desert waterways. …especially abundant now, in a moist, wet monsoon summer. This summer 2022 the dry possible waterways became wet actual waterways flowing down from the centerpiece Santa Catalina escarpment ruling the lower valley and foothills. 

     Tobacco is a much maligned plant in the social context of it being money marketed by global interests to large amounts of people worldwide and the ensuing degradation of their health in a strong addiction for profit model. Like many banned and demonized people, places, plants, and activities, tobacco and the alkaloid nicotine is still out there. In a similar way, native wild tobacco and nicotine as an allelochemical is still out there. Allelochemical means influencing and modifying plant, animal, bird and insect behaviour. An allelochemical is a sort of trickster quasi-neurotransmitter within the plant environment. And just so you know, we still live within a plant environment. Nicotine is such a substance and is in many solanaceae vegetables such as potatoes, pepper, and eggplant. While in general practical science allelochemicals maybe thought of as plant generated herbicides and pesticides, they do more than maximize one particular plant's chance of survival by controlling germination and growth rates in the immediate vicinity of that particular plant, or influence plant resistance to insects and animals. Plants work with many of the same chemical types we do. Plants have neurotransmitter chemicals, same here. We are dependent on plants to live, sorry carnivore fans, in some way everything about us is plants. It's said we started out in a garden somewhere east of Eden. If you want vitality, sooner or later you have to knock on the plant door. Likewise for illness, plants have answers. Working with plants to help one another out with health challenges is a legitimate activity. Today's fascination with health experts who have a phobia engaging with the natural world is a situation that increases suffering for the most vulnerable among us. Health doesn't come in a bottle of pills any more than water comes in a plasric bottle. Engaging with plants is important work, it is the real work.

     In a wet monsoon year desert tobacco, tree tobacco and datura, a network of solanaceae blooming flowers are blooming together in the southwest. Tobacco unbeknownst to most people is not only in neat rows of porcelain white, shiny boxed stacked tubes of 20 pieces, in neat rows at the front desk 7/11 convenience store. Tobacco is a native plant, and this year at least, is everywhere in the old pueblo. Every breath you take is laced not only with ozone, automobile exhaust emissions but also a chemical air soup of pollens. Does the circulating mix of proven allelochemicals in the desert ecosystem influence the 4legged humans zooming about? That is a question that answers yes. We are influenced by the growing green around us. We can choose the hypnotism route of using all our energy to avoid the real or we can stop, slow down and go deep into the littleness of blades of grass, grains of sand.

Rooted, stationary plants were here millions of years before the mobile mammals, scurrying about. The rootedness of plants means that plants secured their existence by becoming chemical factories influencing their world to advantage for their own continued existence. Rather than go the big brain monkey route of zipping around they dug deep, and found a hidden way to influence outcomes. Rather than move their bodies around in the environment, plants remain rooted but circulate a vast array of chemical, color and environmental responses, while simultaneously remaining hunkered down. In that sense, plants evolved to accomplish things vital to survival by remaining rooted in place while their striking chemical and visual adaptations move about in the environment. Plants in that way have accumulated a complex chemistry. Often times these complex chemicals are made in the roots, so that in terms of herbalism, the roots (often but not always) have stronger concentrations of these substances we call plant medicine. Doctoring people with plants is using their ancestral hidden plant mojo, different yet similar to our own, to do good stuff in the body.

     The strong correlation of nicotinic pathway receptors in the human body and also nicotinic pathway connections within the desert ecosystem, indicates that like the Dine and Hopi sippapu story of human emergence in Arizona, and the tobacco stolen by coyote at the four corners, tobacco certainly was certainly, effectively, widely spread around the four corners. From Dok’od’slid to Santa Catalina it’s on. 

     Tobacco is a plant with unique properties. Nicotine as a signal mechanism is present in many plants including one of the oldest plants still around doing it’s thing, Equisitum, the silica rich, horse tail scouring rush. What exactly that means, I really don't know except to say, plants were our healing allies in ancestral time and still are today at this present moment. A lot has changed and nothing has changed, our relationship with plants is an ongoing love affair of plant, person and place. To the degree we can maximize that connection, to that degree we can be.

      Our native Nicotianna obtusifolia, is a medium small plant growing to 3 feet high and bushy in a wet year. With dark green, heavy nitrogen alternate leaves, triangular towards the leafbase. Leaves are spade shaped, rounded spoon blunt pointed leaves. The lower stem leaves at the base of the stem are larger, with a graceful blunted point on a short petiole. Leaves on the upper stem are sessile, clasping the stem, with ear like lobes on both sides of the stem. The leaves growing more narrow, elongated, rising up the stem. The whole plant has glandular, sticky hairs, on the leaves, stems, and flowers. So that dust, insect wings, bits of other plants, pollen from other plants, humming bird feathers, bits of animal fur will stick to these lower first leaves. Although desert tobacco can grow everywhere, it likes best the neural lines of water created friction energy we call, the watercourse, canyon, and stream. Water seeks the lowest place. Often in the desert subsurface water as invisible moisture continues to flow underground in a dry desert arroyo. The Holy Ghost wind also descends and ascends like buzzard and golden eagle on the in out diurnal breath that is the life force of God, flowing up and down the canyons. In addition to subsurface moisture, vital energy flows in the visible tangible form of animal trails and pathways along the wet, now dry, now wet watercourse as visible riparian.  So nicotine grows best, and wild tobacco is also called nicotine, along the earth energy pathway networks of veins and arteries of the place, the ecosystem predestined and ordained by Creator God the father. Tobacco, like many other plants, is a watercourse plant. In terms of herbalists the common consensus for me is that frequently invoking Jesus Christ as the Holy Ghost wind within prayer, contained in the energy pathways of underground streams, placed there by God the father, at the time of creation to later appear as Mary the mother of God birthing redemptive healing, allows healing to more easily occur. This greater fulness in Christ Jesus obviously includes healing plants and herbalist mediated plant materials such as dried herbs, tinctures, salves and poultices. For me it is important to reconcile the numinous plant stories of Christendom. Fortunate or unfortunate I never have been able, nor do I want to shed my Jesus, my saints or my blessed Virgin Mary and the native plant remedios all in culturally incorrect mish mash of relationship. It is who the plants are for me. I am too old to disavow the plants I learn, prayer, fasting, the 1500 year old Catholic Latin mass that for me is stability.

      The flowers of our native desert tobacco, Nicotiana obtusifolia are creamy white tube trumpet shaped, as a beautiful example of an extended corolla one piece. So we could speak of a nightshade shaped flower. The one piece extending beyond the green bracts with five pointed green teeth at the base. The entire plant is sticky, covered with glandular hairs. All parts of the plant have the pyridine-type alkaloid nicotine, created in the underground chemical factory of roots. The roots transmit nicotine to the stem, leaf, flower and pollen. The pollen is released which then circulates throughout the air.    

     Nicotine, a signature alkaloid of Nicotiana species responsible for the addictive properties of tobacco smoking, functions at times for the tobacco plant, as a defensive neurotoxin against insects and bacteria attacking the sovereignty of the wild tobacco plant. Nicotine affects the bacterial, fungal, viral and intricate web of life surrounding tobacco plants. In that sense it functions as an allelochemical, quasi-neuro transmitter within the desert wash. Communicating not only like the thorns of rose, boundaries, but also intricate messages to pollinators as diverse as the hawk moth to the hummingbird.

     Nicotine is a complex contradictory substance on many levels. It is said that the nicotine content of a single tobacco leaf, if ingested simultaneously and completely, in the human body, would instantly kill several human beings. Yet over one billion people consume nicotine products as cigars, chewing tobacco, cigarettes, vaping, and are somehow able to process it. Nicotine is used as a potent insecticide. Yet Nicotiana is fertilized by the hawk moth. Likewise tobacco flowers containing nicotine are deadly to avian species, yet although deadly to avian species they are pollinated by hummingbirds. Hummingbirds as a general rule pollinate only red and orange flowers, yet tobacco has a creamy white flower. 

     Athabascan people in the four corners, in the past viewed tobacco as one of the first plants. Tobacco’s use is tied to coyote who stole tobacco from his cousin, the Sun. “According to the White Mountain Apache legend, Coyote Steals Sun’s Tobacco, Slim Coyote, a trickster, visits his cousin Sun on a day when Sun was not home. Coyote tells Sun’s wife he came to talk to his cousin and will wait for him to return.

     While waiting Coyote asks if he can have some of Sun’s tobacco to smoke, since he came to talk and smoke, saying his cousin would not mind. Sun’s wife says he can. Coyote fills his own little buckskin bag from Sun’s bag, quickly hiding his own bag. He then rolls a cigarette and says he has decided not to wait.

     When Sun returns home he immediately asks who’s been there when seeing his depleted tobacco bag. His wife tells him what occurred. Sun get very angry and is determined to get that fellow. He saddles his horse Black Wild Horse and takes off after Coyote.

     Now the horse could fly, making a sound of lightening when it did. A falling light rain covered Coyote’s tracks, but Sun still could follow him by the ashes from the thief’s cigarette.

     As it continued raining the tobacco that Coyote had with him began to sprout and grow putting out leaves, and then flowers. When it dried, the wind scattered its seeds everywhere. When Sun saw this, he stopped chasing Coyote and went back home.

But Coyote’s troubles, due to his behavior, were not over yet. When getting back to the Apache camp where he was living Coyote would not share his tobacco.

     The people kept asking him for tobacco to smoke and Coyote kept refusing to give them any. Finally an Apache council was held and it was decided to pretend to give Coyote a wife in order to get his tobacco.

     When they told Coyote they were going to give him a wife, at first he thought they were joking, but they convinced him of their sincerity by building him a new hogan and promising slim coyote a wedding ceremony at sunrise the next day. This caused Coyote to feel so good that he gave them all of his tobacco.

     So come time, a young man dressed as a woman entered the hogan and sat down beside Coyote; he had been told not to let Coyote see him till dawn. They both stayed on opposite sides of the hogan. Slim Coyote became very excited; he could not stand up but just crawled around on the ground, barking. As time passed he became more and more impatient.

    Then just before dawn, as it was getting brighter Coyote could see he had been tricked. : “You’re not a woman. You are a man.” He ran out screaming to the people, “You lied to me, you didn’t give me a wife at all. Give me my tobacco back!” But no matter how loud he ranted and yelled the people would not give the tobacco back. This is how people first got tobacco.”  A.G.H.

    Plants have stories and we are their tellers. The squash gourd pumpkin instantly communicates halloween, fall, autumn, the coming of winter. Crocus, lily, rose say the coming of spring, valentine’s day, new life, romance. A spruce or pine says winter, Christmas tree, solstice. These plants have stories because we have stories within the place where plants grow.

     Nicotine is very similar chemically to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which functions in the human peripheral nervous system. “Components of the cholinergic system—acetylcholine, acetylcholinesterase, and acetylcholine receptors—are the principal components of the nerve transmission in animals. Plants, though nerveless, have long been known to possess most of the components of the cholinergic system. Plants also have a repertoire of chemicals that inhibit various components of the acetylcholine system. A hitherto overlooked fact is that many of these anticholinergic chemicals present in some plants act as allelochemicals and help the plants to dominate their habitat by affecting the growth of other plants in their vicinity. Since the target sites of most of the allelochemicals in victim plants are unknown, the possibility of cholinergic chemicals as allelochemicals opens new areas of research in plant biology. We have shown earlier that the extract of Cyperus rotundus inhibits acetylcholinesterase activity in electric eel, wheat, and tomato and that it also inhibits germination and growth of root and shoot in tomato and wheat. Now, we present evidence that the methanolic extracts of 45 weeds, including invasive weeds like Lantana camara, Ageratum conyzoides, Argemonemexicana, Ranunculus sceleratus, and Prosopis juliflora contain very high levels of anticholinesterases. Anticholinesterases block the enzyme acetylcholinesterase, resulting in an increase in the levels of acetylcholine in the system. We propose that cholinergic chemicals act as allelochemicals in plants.”

     So while it would be confusing to say that plants have neurotransmitters, because they do not have nerve cells, neurons, and lack a nervous system, they are alive. They do utilize allelochemicals such as acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter in humans, mammals, and birds. Allelochemicals are synomones, chemicals emitted by one organism, that influence the physiology and behavior of another species. Allelochemicals affect other organisms, either in their physiology, growth, and behavior or life history. Effects range from stimulation to regulation and inhibition. So what does it mean to say plants produce neurotransmitters? What does it mean to say plants lack any currently identifiable nervous system? Then in the same breath state, plants make and use the substance acetylcholine, and many similar substances our body uses? Acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter. In other words, by logic, plants do have the equivalent of a kind of nervous system that makes possible their life via neurotransmitters within their brainless, neuron-less, nerve-less consciousness environment. Because they make and use not just one, but dozens of known substances that a scientist would identify as chemicals called neurotransmitters. The nervous system of plants maintains a plant’s life just as our brain maintains our life in a body, and that body in the environment. 

     So we need to re-think neuro-transmitter in our own human biology. Our thinking is head/brain value heavy. Especially now with the growth of invasive, quasi-magical AI modifications to our behavior, and hence value system-nuevo. Lack of verbal, tactile, visual eye contact becomes the new compassionate response to every person, every time. As the AI trojan horse menace invades every nuance of experience, our integrity as persons to respond meaningfully becomes baffled. Remembering Edward Abbey and the monkey wrench, every social interaction becomes a lack of faith with grains of sand, jamming the gears of american big pharma police surveillance state hegemony of the big tech, thought police app world. It is this ultimate lack of faith that must be pursued on every front. When we think, consider a neurotransmitter, we imagine ourselves as the apex of the AI foodchain pyramid. We are the master autistic big brain lunatic at our massive computer desk. We have accomplished the final solution mastery of events. We applaud the personless, family free, raceless, nationless economic zone. When in truth we are mastered by an AI cult of death and masturbation. We imagine neurotransmitters doing something heroic between the ears, within our brain, in our head, which is true but becomes false if we don’t include our lungs, legs, fingers, intestines, and so on. NT’s have functions within every body system. The key component word in NT’s neurotransmitters is not brain. If the key component word in NT’s was brain, it would preclude NT’s in brainless plants. Let’s be clear, ‘brainless plants’ is not a derogatory put down. It is simply an affirmation that plants have a brainless intelligence. Plants, like us, have intelligence that is operative, manipulating and managing survival strategies in an ever changing world for kind after kind. Our wisdom to survive as genetically intact must include a resistance to the transitioning of AI.

    In short, you’re smart if you can take care of your own shit. You are stupid if you can not manage your own shit. You are intelligent if you can set and achieve goals. The primary goal of human existence is never far from, order, cleanliness and literally, hygiene, because shit born illnesses, drinking water contaminated with fecal matter, was the single greatest limiter and scourge, plague to be overcome. When people talk of the greatest health gain it is not, and never was, vaccines, pills or much of modern pharma. That is pharma born police state fictional narrative. The greatest health gains have been clean drinking water, the elimination of disease carrying vermin, rat infested living spaces, the draining of swamps, the clearing of forest and within all that, solid nutrition. To these we must return again, clean water, nourishing food, family, love. All these improve the vitality of people and indirectly their ability to maintain health. Health is rooted in the body, and the body politic of governance as the family, the strength and resilience of body vitality. Knowing that our body is relationship. Health can not be rooted in pills and potions and that includes herbal potions. 

   Currently many people are actively pessimistic and withdrawing from each other and the actual world of place in doing. Their science advises a world of caution, fear and introspection. They advertise a new monasticism of  transitioning to an AI (artificial intelligence) erasure mentality. They are pursuing a bodiless electro spiritual existence within supposed intro-nets. There is enforced regime forgetfulness, a benzodiazepine fog of electricity in every continuous economic transaction. What actually is happening in our own bodies is lost in the pharma forgetfulness of the actuality of the world around us as erasure. People live isolated from natural process in climate controlled pods connected to various bizarre virtual, online realities. We, as people, working directly with plants, are one of a large minority of people that understand that transitioning to an AI virtual reality is a Jim Jones Guyana death cult on a global scale. AI virtual transitioning is head heavy imposed slavery. Leading the way globally, to this dystopian fear zone by a death cult occupied America. Working with plants as herbalism is a meaningful conduit to active resistance to AI transitioning. Herbalism presupposes intimate contact with plants and their wild, eco systems. I would go as far as to say, that if a new fear cult illness arises, the cure is already available in the traditional plant, folk medicines. So begin the work of making medicine as salvation story. When you mix up a topical liniment with desert tobacco, and other local growing abundant, commonplace plants, and share it freely person to person, face to face you are doing the real work.

     So plants use NT’s in the environment to get stuff done. Plants can’t run around, trees and tobacco plants have roots in the earth. Plants can not call 911, but they can control their sovereignty and secure the existence of their plant people and a future for plant children, as sprouts, rhizomes, roots, seeds, branches, pollen and leaves via NT’s functioning as allelochemicals within the greater ecosystem. We as herbalists come to the plant to cooperate with their work because their work is our work. While it is somehow true plants are chemical factories, and we use their chemical constituents in our formulas, it is also true plants exist as we do, in the mind of God. as spirit. These two versions of plants are opposed only in the mind of the enemy who would lie, destroy and have us masked, shut in our pod, cowering in fear. Fear on that level, systemic fear that divides and separates is a form of arrogance because it denies the power of God to overcome. Our heroic ancestral spirit is ongoing.

     On the tongue, in the back of the throat, in the nose, nicotine has an acrid, sharp biting bitter taste. This sensation is present in vaping, tobacco smoke, chewing tobacco and in the immediate environment of smokers. It is present on the clothes, skin, saliva, hair, fingers of smokers. This biting stinging sensation is also perceptible in the upper, north sonoran desert air, with every breath during a banner monsoon year. During a banner monsoon summer there can be billions of Nicotiana obtusifolia flowers blooming, releasing their pollen. Thus releasing their neuro chemical analogs. And of course not only tobacco pollen but a plethora of species doing the same thing, modifying the environment in an air-born soup.

 

    Tobacco leaves alive, encountered in the wild, have a pungent smell like other members of the nightshade family. Commercial tobacco has many flavorings, spices, sugar and additives to mask the taste and aroma of tobacco smoke and change the pH for absorption of nicotine at mucous membranes in the mouth, air ways and lung tissue. 

    Nicotine, although a deadly poison, somehow mimics various neuro receptors and signal communication pathways within the brain and various body systems of two legged humans. Significantly this same information response adaptation, neuro receptors in the immediate environment of nicotine laced tobacco plants is a feed back loop strongly present, in the biosystem environment of the upper sonoran desert ecosystem. “nocturnal moth-pollinated flowers are characterized as having corollas that are white or pale in color and as emitting a strong, sweet scent when open, which is usually in the evening or at night”, (1961; Percival, 1965; Faegri and van der Pijl, 1966).)  “Hummingbirds are the predominant pollinators of species with short-tubed flowers of various other colors, ranging from red to pink to greenish-yellow”, 

     

      

Etymology: Nicotiana is named for Jean Nicot (1530-1600), the French ambassador to Portugal responsible for introducing tobacco to France in 1560; obtusifolia means obtuse or blunt leaved.

Burland, Cottie. North American Indian Mythology. Middlesex, England. Hamlyn Publishing Group. 1968. pp. 110-111

Erdoes, Richard, Alfonso Oritz. Eds. American Indian Myths and Legends. New York. Pantheon Books. 1984. pp. 377-379

Leeming, David, Jake Page. The Mythology of Native North America. Norman. University of Oklahoma Press. 1998. p. 65

https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/how-the-tobacco-plant-outwitted-the-hawkmoth

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185683

https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3732/ajb.92.8.1270

https://desert.com/smoking/

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nicotine-in-vegetables_n_1597087

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15109883/

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1201/b22467-15/role-acetylcholine-system-allelopathy-plants-rashmi-sharma-rajendra-gupta

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjp/85/1/85_1_2/_pdf/-char/en

Role of Acetylcholine System in Allelopathy of Plants

ByRashmi Sharma, Rajendra Gupta, 1sr edition 2018

Whorled mountain mint, Pycnanthemum verticillatum

      Whorled mountain mint, Pycnanthemum verticillatum, Lamiaceae family. Mountain mints Pycnanthemum make up their own wood mint tribe located here on the east coast, here growing in a relatively, open, full sun meadow environment. 

    Whorled mountain mint is a Lamiaceae/mint family perennial plant. The mountain mints are eastern woodland plants with highly aromatic foliage, square mint stems, and a basic opposite leaf pattern. At first appearance it's flattened pale white flowerhead pattern, at the very top of the plant, resembles an asteraceae plant. It appears similar to the white asteraceae tribe, similar to pussy toes, from a distance looking at the meadow like tall yarrow. It's foliage is stiff hard to the touch, unlike many mints whose foliage is soft, moist, wet and downy. It's leaves have a tactile, sense of a drought tolerant, open meadow, full sun, hardy plant vs the soft watery, moisture filled, palustrine mints. 

       Palustrine means a non-tidal, fresh water marshy wetland. Whorled mountain mint does not usually grow in a wet marsh.  Palustrine is the same as paludose, from the latin paluster. Palustrine is foot wet zone, whorled mountain mint is in the foot dry zone, an open, full sun, well drained eastern states meadow. Yet it's aromatic foliage resembles, smells like, tastes like the moist poleo, or Mentha arvensis, Mentha canadensis. I think it's fair to call whorled mountain mint, a whorled horse mint. 

     It has a brown red woody square stem, a set of lanceolate opposite leaves, sessile, meaning attached directly to the main stem without a petiole. This mountain mint has a unique feature for which it's named, a distinctive whorled pattern of smaller leaves at the leaf axil. 

     It's foliage is stiff to touch, oily, minty spicy aromatic. Its quality is warming, spicy hot tasting, minty, like other spicy, minty, highly aromatic herbs of the mint family. We gain this knowledge of the individual plant by organoleptic testing.  We experience the plant directly by sense input. From this input we can frequently get an idea of the plant identity, and this can lead to understanding what the plant does in the body. Of course organoleptic is only part of learning the plant. A plant has leaf characteristics that can best be described by the specific botanical term, through a specific unique language developed within our western cultural tradition. Likewise a scientific specific binomial, first and last, genus and species name. Pycnanthemum verticillatum. This name and system of categorizing plants, organizing plants is another aspect of western european culture and heritage, 

     Organoleptic comes from the french, organoleptique, -organo meaning 'organs of the body', thus the senses and -leptique from the greek leptiqos, disposed to take. So through the organs of sense we take in information about the plant directly in front of us. So using all your senses including tongue, nose, touch sensorial input, and the gestalt of biosense, the whole terrain and lay of the land, we can frequently learn something about the plant. Not only tasting the herb, but seeing the patterns in the landscape. Probably being alone with the plant where it grows. Then taking this style of knowledge which is non-verbal and letting it do its own thing developing connections as it goes. Spending time in the bio-environment of whorled mountain mint. Organoleptic perception allows me to get a sense of the herbal nature of the plant and what that herb does in my body. So you get a sense of how the herb lends itself to certain actions within the body. 

   Reconciliation is the next step of the process. The idea is that you want to build from personal direct experience. You get a sense of the plant within the landscape, you co-inhabit that same landscape. Then you do your best to reconcile what you've got directly from that personal experience, with what others have understood about the plant as herb use for various conditions, complaints, and concerns. You want to rule out the random, anomaly. Are most whorled mountain mints like the ones I saw? Ideally you want a direct face to face confirmation from another person who has used, gathered and done stuff with the herb, an herbalist. That interaction, face to face, direct, is both social and culture. Then you want to confirm, deny or expand on that confirmation with a written source, meaning further reconciliation. Each one of those steps, organoleptic, person to plant, person to person, academic book based confirmation, each herbal step is essential.

   

        Whorled mountain mint like ginger works as a servant herb to get herbs deep into the tissues. You can consider understanding the mountain mints as kinetic, moving, warming, heating herbs. When an herb is strongly kinetic, promoting movement in the body, heating, warming it automatically should bring up certain cautions and concerns, especially regarding its use in pregnancy. Herbs that heat you up, make you pee, poop, sweat, make your face red, cause you to blush, should be avoided during pregnancy. Pregnancy can be understood as a modified stuck condition. A stuck condition here needs to be kept that way. During pregnancy, mommy wants the baby to remain, stable, well nourished stuck, within baby's house, the uterus. She is carrying the baby, holding it there. Baby needs to stay so mommy needs to chill. The baby's needs to be held and protected, in baby's safe space within mommy until baby is ready to come out. So you want the baby to be held, stuck safely inside mommy's belly. For that reason, strongly moving herbs are contraindicated in pregnancy. Well meaning folk herbalists need to be aware of this principle.  Just because an herb, or any substance is fairly safe does not mean it's safe during pregnancy. People without a lot of experience tend to over do things, especially so called natural things. Just because an herb is natural doesn't mean it's a good choice in the modified stuck situation of pregnancy. Deeper into this, when similar, well meaning dominant culturalists, medical experts or not, say various things are safe during pregnancy that has to be seriously questioned. Beyond, nourishing food and clean water, any substance taken into the body during pregnancy needs to be seriously questioned. You would be safe to say, that just as the modern american life/style if lived according to its own narrative, guidelines and advertising, if executed as advised will make a person sick, in the same way if a pregnant American woman attempts to live as a regular person, in the standard narrative and agenda of modernism, she will inevitably adversely affect the baby she is carrying. Pregnancy is a unique woman specialized condition with its own guidelines. Likewise the care, suckling, breast feeding, nursing of the infant is a specialized mommy, female, womanly zone type of thing.

https://youtu.be/9SeeuYB6kG8

     Mountain mint, similar to poleo mint, has a folk usage for upset sour stomach, digestive tract disorders, as a mouth rinse with a little salt for  mouth sores, bleeding gums, indigestion, colic, and gas/flatulence. Mountain mint also encourages menstrual flow. It can help to open up stuck, boggy uncomfortable menses. If used at the right time in the cycle it can relieve menstrual cramps and bloating. 

     Pycnanthemum spp, mountain is diaphoretic it promotes sweating; stimulant an aid to digestion; antispasmodic can help with cramps; carminative dispels gas; and tonic. A warm infusion is very useful in puerperal the first 6 weeks after delivery; likewise in other forms of recurring fever, coughs, colds, catarrhs excessive mucus from inflammation of the mucus membranes. It can be useful alone or probably more appropriate added to a customized herbal formula with other herbs for spasmodic situations in the body, especially colic, stomach cramps, menstrual cramps. The cold infusion is a good tonic and stimulant during convalescence from exhausting diseases. Dose of the infusion, either warm or cold, from 1 to 4 fluid ounces, 3 or more times a day. A liquor, similar to spirit of poleo can be made, see other blog posts. A good formula for colic or nausea is fennel seed, catnip, and whorled mountain, made as glycerite. Or raspberry leaf, whorled mountain mint glycerite. Another formula is mountain mint, bugle weed, and catnip for empacho. Empacho is a term from traditional folk medicine of the southwest, which may be unfamiliar in other parts of the country. See my blogpost from 2015. Mountain mint can substitute in formulas for Mentha arvenis, horsemint or other mints.

  https://pgmanski.blogspot.com/2016/10/el-empacho-remedio-nebada-poleo-hinojo.html?m=1

   

A tea made with whorled mountain mint resembles both monarda and poleo, you can almost instantly feel it opening up the breathing, causing you to sweat, and encourage urination. Its decoctions are quite helpful in healing wounds, curing fever, and pains of various origins (especially toothache). Also added to a pain relief liniment. In the field, you can rub the leaves on clothing including shoes, socks and pant legs as an insect repellant. You can combine horse mint with yarrow for insect repellants and mixed with rose geranium for tick repellant on clothing pant legs, socks and shoes in early spring.

https://pgmanski.blogspot.com/search/label/Poleo?m=1

The leaves of mountain mint are rich in limonene, menthone, pulgeon, and menthol. I strongly recommend adding whorled mountain mint to your materia medica.

Purple loosestrife Lythrum salicaria

 Purple loosestrife, Lythrum salicaria -Lythraceae (Loosestrife family)

I am continuing on with herbal plant study in the Northeast encountering a lot of plants I remember vaguely from childhood, growing up but had never explored from a folk herbal, medicinal standpoint. It is exciting exploring the plants and big river mountain hill biosystem in a slower paced plant friendly manner. I'm settling into a different pace. The rivers big boundaries between small areas that you don't get in the west. Of course there are rivers in the west yet they are few and far between. So in the west I did a lot of driving from the desert to the mountains to access the plants. That automobile narrative mindset itself was a disconcerting kind of experience because it's beyond human and plants.You are traveling at super human speed, 60 70 mph, and in a sense it disempowers the space. Plants live attached anchored to a distinct terrain. On two legs we move about the space. The difference between plants and people is a similar to the difference between people and cardinals, then between cardinals and eagles. Yet when people become car-people they lack the sensorial richness to support that additional mobility. Driving a car although at first it seems like an expanding experience soon becomes more of a subtraction. We don't have the senses to support an automobile mindset. Our eyes, fingers, ears hands and tongue are two legged eyes, two legged fingers, two legged tongues. I found the more I lived an automobile life the more it decreased my physical vitality. It alters experience of the space and ultimately how I experience the plants.

https://youtu.be/duqNGed-TCo

Another issue was the prolonged drought that began sometimes around the 1980's. On the Yellowstone fires it was obvious that-the trees had-been stressed by an extended drought. I remember the area around Lander Wyoming, cutting firewood with Steve Norwood and seeing probably thousands of acres of lodgepole that were killed by pine bark beetles. In my move to the Arizona strip studying the plants it became obvious there too, extended drought had altered the demographics of mountainous plants. Plants from both the Maderian Sky Islands to the lower desert were affected by sustained drought, not only were the plants different, the plants were affected by the extended long-term drought and the people who live within the drought were also equally changed. Both the plants and people adapted to scarcity. There were twice as many people living in Arizona then when I first arrived. That doubling in population was uncomfortable, places became unrecognizable. For the most part the new arrivals were dominant culture people by choice. They were not coming to Arizona for herbal medicine. They were searching for and created an automobile air conditioned paradise or automobile air conditioned nightmare, depending on your perspective.

For me it's an experiment, to deepen my relationship with the medicinal plants. The area I am living has right outside my door access to hundreds of miles to rails to trails bicycle paths. I grew up here so many plants I remember seeing as a child. They kinda feel like my plants. They are close by. I am going to make the best of it. So I am using the bicycle routes to meet new plants. Purple loosestrife is one such plant.

Purple loosestrife, Lythrum salicaria -Lythraceae (Loosestrife family)

Loosestrife is another endemic naturalized herb, ubiquitously abundant throughout the eastern US with a long written history of medicinal use first documented by the Greeks and Romans and later documented by european herbalists. Of course for any medical condition check first always with paid licensed medical professionals, the CDC and our excellent highly respected health system.

It grows here in open full sun meadows. It is 3-4 feet high, with sessile (grasping directly the central stalk) lanceolate (lance shaped, pointed leafs. Flowers are brilliant pink purple, visible from a distance, 6 sepals on an elevated flower spike. It grows from palustrine wetlands to dry disturbed meadows. Significantly, when harvesting Purple loosestrife avoid contaminated polluted industrial sites as Lythrum salicaria readily absorbs chemical pollutants.

Many plants once they are labeled, "invasive" are considered unclean and shunned for use. It's a gifted blessing that such a pedigreed invasive, abundant weed herb, herb weed comes along. The commonplace, in your face, growing out of sidewalk cracks healing vibe. I was pleasantly shocked rocked that ancient Greek texts extol its virtues as an important healing plant.

Purple loosestrife, as an astringent herb with demulcent qualities, lends itself well to traditional use for both childhood and adult diarrhea/ loose stools. In addition-it was used as a gargle/swish/spit mouth rinse and for gum and teeth issues. In addition to astringent qualities it also has antimicrobial qualities,

"Dioscorides wrote in De Materia Medica (c. ~70 AD):

“The herb is tart and strong in taste, of an astringent and refrigerant nature, good for stanching both outward and inward bleeding; sap extracted from the leaves and drunk stops blood-spitting and dysentery, and sour wine in which the leaves have been boiled when taken internally will have the same effect; and if the plant is set afore it gives off a pungent vapor and smoke that drives away serpents; and flies cannot stay in a room where this smoke is.”

Taste: Bitter, slight sour, slightly salty, astringent

It can also be used to treat heavy periods and inter-menstrual bleeding. It was used in europe for outbreaks of dysentery, said to work for diarrhea in children and babies. also in TCM, traditional Chines medicine: "TCM considers it to be cold, bitter and astringent and it’s associated with the Liver, Small Intestine, and Lungs and classically used to treat dysentery."

Piwowarski & Kiss write, "The review of historical sources from ancient times till 20th century revealed an outstanding position of L. salicaria in traditional medicine. The main applications indicated were gastrointestinal tract ailments (mainly dysentery and diarrhea) as well as different skin and mucosa affections. The current phytochemical studies have shown that polyphenols (C-glucosidic ellagitannins and C-glucosidic flavonoids) as well as heteropolysaccharides are dominating constituents, which probably determine the observed pharmacological effects. The extracts and some isolated compounds were shown to possess antidiarrheal, antimicrobial, anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic activities."

Traditional uses: Lythrum salicaria was known as medicinal plant from the ancient Greek and Roman times. The aerial parts of Lythrum salicaria were used internally for the treatment of diarrhea, chronic intestinal catarrh, hemorrhoid, eczema, as a decoction or fluid extract. Externally, it was used in the treatment of varicose veins, bleeding of the gums, hemorrhoid, eczema and vaginitis(42-45) . It was also used as a demulcent and astringent decoction for the treatment of colorectitis, summer complaints of children diarrhoea; locally for chronic ophthalmic and as a wash or poultice for leucorrhoea, gleet (gonorrheal discharge), and chronic gonorrhea(46) . Parts used medicinally: Aerial parts(42-45)".

from-Ali Esmail Al-Snafi Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Thi qar University, Iraq

       From  Jakub P. Piwowarski, Sebastian Granica, Anna K. Kiss

"Early experiments Between 1915-1916 Caille and Viel (1919) isolated glucoside (unknown structure) from Lythrum salicaria- salicairine. In experiments conducted using in vitro models as well as animal trials and people suffering from chronic and acute diseases of gastrointestinal tract, several therapeutic activities of salicairine were determined: astringent properties expressed as stool consistency normalization; hemostatic activity observed as disappearance of blood from feces; decrease of pain and disappearance of pathogenic bacilli. No adverse effects, even at high doses were observed. Dumont (1920) taking into account the above properties recommended preparation containing salicairine (under the same name) in the treatment of diarrheas in children, non-specific enteritis, bacterial enteritis, dysentery caused by bacilli as well as combined with emetine in amoebiasis. Recommended doses of preparation salicairine: children: acute affections: 10-20 drops (equivalent 10-20 mg of glucoside- salicairine), chronic affections 4-10 drops; adults: acute affections 40-100 drops, chronic affections 20-50 drops. Dufour used Lythrum salicaria liquid extract (salicairine) at a dose of 0.5-0.6 g/day in the treatment of diarrhea in infants and in 2/3 from 100 cases observed significant recovery. In adults therapy with Lythrum salicaria liquid extract at a dose of 3-4 g/day occurred to be very effective in the therapy of diarrhea, acute and chronic dysentery with accompanying diarrhea and in Shigella sp.-caused dysentery. The author claimed that the changes in intestine mucosa caused by tannins and/or other constituents were responsible for the therapeutic effects (Dufour, 1919a; Dufour, 1917). Dedieu (1921) reported the use of salicairine in children’s clinic in Toulouse in the treatment of gastrointestinal tract disorders in infants. Seventeen patients (aged 2-20 months) with acute and sub-acute gastroenteritis accompanied by fever, with infantile colic or with diarrhea caused by the overeating. The standard therapyhydration plus calomel (mercury (I) chloride) gave no positive results towards diarrhea. When infants were given salicairine 3 drops/3 times/day the amount of stools significantly decreased as well as water content in feces. Maurin (1922) stated the effectiveness of Lythrum salicaria in the dysentery observed as amelioration of stool consistency and its smell followed by the general patient condition improvement. Interestingly the positive impact on gut microbiota composition was observed accompanied by disappearance of pathogenic strains. 

     He recommended the use in acute and chronic diarrhea, dysentery caused by Shigella sp., enteritis, intestine infections, gastroenteritis and green stools in children in the form of powdered herb (1 g 3-4 times/day), infusion (3-6 g/day) and aqueous extract (0.5-1 g/day). At least two preparations of Lythrum salicaria were available on the French market since 1920s’ Salicairine (standardized extract in the form of fluid or tablets produced by Laboratoires Legras, France) and Salitol (the liquid extract). These formulations basing on research cited above were recommended in the treatment of chronic and acute dysentery and diarrhea of different etiologies in adults and children. In 1960’ Lythrum salicaria was still popular as a remedy for diarrhea, especially in children and applied even in diarrheas of bacterial etiology. It was used in the form of decoction, powdered herb or standardized liquid extract. Lafon (1962) in qualitative reports on plant-derived drugs to French Pharmacopoeia enumerates astringent, cicatrizing and antidiarrheal properties of Lythrum salicaria flowering tops. These times amount of Lythrum salicaria herb used for production of galenic preparations in France reached 3-4 tones per year (Paris and Moyse, 1967). The important position of Lyhrum salicaria in the therapy of gastrointestinal tract inflammation-associated ailments (especially dysentery of different etiologies) can be deduced basing on its descriptions in many 18th, 19th and early 20th century medicinal dictionaries, manuals and guidebooks listed in Table 4. Table 4. 18th, 19th and early 20th century medicinal dictionaries, manuals and guidebooks containing information about Lythrum salicaria use in therapy of gastrointestinal tract ailments."

----from From  Jakub P. Piwowarski, Sebastian Granica, Anna K. Kiss

Uses: internal as tea, plant tincture, external in salves or compress as vulnerary, to stop bleeding, to encourage wound healing.

Consider adding the Purple Loosestrife to your materia medica.

Lythrum salicaria L.—Underestimated medicinal plant from European traditional medicine. A review

Author links open overlay panelJakub P.PiwowarskiSebastianGranicaAnna K.Kiss

Department of Pharmacognosy and Molecular Basis of Phytotherapy, Medical University of Warsaw, Faculty of Pharmacy, ul. Banacha 1, 02-097 Warsaw, Poland

https://docksci.com/lythrum-salicaria-l-underestimated-medicinal-plant-from-european-traditional-med_5a498453d64ab24150c21759.html

Chemical Constituents and Pharmacological Effects of Lythrum Salicaria- A Review Ali Esmail Al-Snafi Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine, Thi qar University, Iraq

FARMACIA, 2009, Vol. 57, 2

192

LYTHRUM SALICARIA‭ (PURPLE LOOSESTRIFE). ‬

MEDICINAL USE, EXTRACTION AND

IDENTIFICATION OF ITS TOTAL PHENOLIC

COMPOUNDS ‭ ‬

SUHAD S. HUMADI‭1, VIORICA ISTUDOR‭2* ‬‬

1‭University of Baghdad, Faculty of Pharmacy ‬

2‭University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Carol Davila”, Faculty of ‬

Pharmacy, Traian Vuia 6, sect. 2, 020956, Romania

*corresponding author: viorica.istudor@gmail.com

https://www.milkandhoneyherbs.com/.../purple-loosestrife...

https://www.herbrally.com/monographs/purple-loosestrife

http://www.naturalmedicinalherbs.net/.../lythrum...

Boneset, Eupatorium perfoliatum

 Boneset, Eupatorium perfoliatum, Aster family.

[Note: caution, seek out licensed professional medical treatment for all medical conditions. Recent studies on the plant genus Eupatorium spp have indicated hepatic-toxic( liver) alkaloids present within this plant genus. Conflicting studies have named Eupatorium perfoliatum within this group. The studies themselves I have read indicate contamination of plant material. Meaning some of the plants tested were not Eupatorium perfoliatum.

Accurately getting wild herbal plants tested is a problem. Eupatorium spp are frequently misidentified especially with regard to conflicting local common names, part of plant tested whether root, stalk, leaf or flower. Frequently herbal products sold do not match their labeled contents. Regardless the possibility of hepato-toxic alkaloids is a significant issue.] Yet boneset was used as a folk medicine, as an eclectic botanical medicine into the 1920's, and it's use has been historically short term and in small quanities, in folk medicine as a bitter fairly bad tasting medicinal tea. 

    Boneset is a perennial flowering herb, 2-4 ft tall. The leaf base surrounds the central stem. In botanical terms, sessile opposite leaves, (leaves clasping the central stem, without petiole/leaf stem) where stalk appears to pass though the main stalk). Leaves are glossy green, up to 6 inches long, tapered to a point, lanceot, with serrate/rounded toothed margins. Growing here at 1500ft northern appalachian NE woodland open sun meadow, blooming 2nd week August. 

    A plant of meadow, road side, disturbed cleared land. Boneset grows extensively throughout the eastern US. Boneset, due to it's nature as a medicinal plant is to be used cautiously, ie, it's not an herb like say ginger, or mint which are food/medicine herbs. Boneset is solely a medicine plant. It's not a plant to be taken daily, or in large doses especially as a tincture. Which means a cautious approach. 

      The parts used are the  flowers and green leaves. For colds and flu it's often combined with pleurisy root and echinacea. Probably the best way to use boneset is the traditional tea at first sign of colds and flu, similar to purple vervain. Using it for three to five days, then discontinue use. Thankfully it is not a likeable enjoyable taste, it tastes very bitter, and medicinal. Not a plasant drinkable tea. 

     Several studies have linked multiple Eupatorium spp, and specifically Eupatorium perfoliatum, boneset to dangerous hepatic-toxic alkaloids, in both the tincture of boneset extracted via alcohol and hot water. Caution is therefore advised with bonesets use. Personally I would not advise release of tincture outside of a controlled monitored situation. Tinctures are extremely concentrated medicines as compared to a tea. Contradicted in anyone with liver issues, fatty liver, cirrhosis,  elevated liver enzymes or heavy recreational alcohol use.  

     So its use should be weighed and short term less than 5 days and probably limited to the traditional folk tea method. The taste is extremely bitter, so I can't see anyone drinking much of it without throwing up. It was used similar to lobelia as an emetic.

    Interest in boneset was increased recently due to reccomendation for use, and used by many these past two years, recently for evolving conditions related to respiratory issues, low grade fever etc, used similarly in past historical similar conditions. During the pandemic of 1918-19 following the initial portion of the great 30 years war of european western erasure reset carried out between 1914-1945. Boneset was considered one of the safest and most successful eclectic remedies prescribed and utilized for the 1918-19 so called spanish flu. The eclectic medical botanical tradition of  physicians, was a uniquely american medical stream of knowledge that was effectively erased and reset to industrial pharmaceuticals by the organizers and beneficiaries of the 30 years war. Which is sad because many of the health gains in disease prevention had a lot to do with fresh food, sanitation and availability of clean drinking water. Many of the eclectic botanical medicines could have been kept, and made available to people. Instead, I say erased and reset because the medical knowledge base of the eclectics wasn't expanded through addition, it was wiped out and replaced. There was a medi pharma industrial war and the winners of the conflict re-wrote the narrative to fit their objectives. That objective although portrayed as human excellence and health, is in reality relentless jingo capitalism, with profit for a unique global elite class. They then set up local regimes utilizing the archetypal items of the old national culture, of a nation, to conduct a 24/7 multi level pyramid scam, perpetrated via mass media get rich quick, everything for sale, including the most important forsale item, which are people. People become the products bought, sold and traded. In the flag waving state, people, their sons and daughters, elderly, infirm, are the final solution harvest for sale items. Everything is capable of being priced, bought, sold, and traded. We are all for ultimate products in a continuous sale. Where the cultural hegemony becomes ultimate american pimp and hoe. Your either a pimp or hoe, or a hoe dreaming of being a madame in the business. No one can step off the merry go round of continuous sale. The bottom line in the industrial hoax of family is where the strong continuously market the weak and the vulnerable. Children/hoes are pimped out by their pimp/caretakers to first responder rape gang culture. They are drugged into existential oblivion by cheap heroin, marijuana, meth, tobacco, alcohol. Elders are deep sedated in their forced pharma police state internment camps, every demographic is partial culled for profit in the dystopian cult of pyramid pleasure profit. We have transitioned from selling things and stuff, to selling one another in the ultimate flag waving, surveillance, medi, slavery cult. 

     Blocking access to the medicinal plants that have sustained people throughout beginning-less time is a key priority in erasure. A do it yourself, small scale, localized approach to herbal medicine is always problematic for those seeking to usurp health sovereignty. In your face localism is the primary solution for what ails us related to herbalism. Teaching, learning, done small, local, face to face. 

    The name boneset is more bone-break fever, and refers mainly to fever flu with bone breaking pain, deep bone ache. Boneset doesn't refer exclusively to setting bones, or setting broken fractured bones. Although there is folk traditional references to its use topically similar to comfrey. Looking at the strong sessile leaf pattern the doctrine of signature idea of mending broken parts, broken bones, is strongly visually present. Boneset is a facinating folk heritage plant to learn. 

The Eclectic Materia Medica, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 1922, was written by Harvey Wickes Felter, M.D.

Abascal, K., (2006). Herbs & influenza: how herbs used in the 1918 flu pandemic can be effective today. Vashon, WA: Tigana Press.

Abascal, K., (2020). Herbs and influenza: how herbs used in the 1918 flu pandemic can be effective in ANY pandemic, 2nd ed. Vashon, WA: Tigana Press.

Abascal, K. and Yarnell, E., (2006). Herbal treatments for pandemic influenza: learning from the Eclectics’ experience. Alternative and Complementary Therapies, 12(5), pp. 214-221. [online] Available at: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/act.2006.12.214 [Accessed 14 July 2021].

Brinker, F., (2007). Book review of: Herbs & Influenza: how herbs used in the 1918 Flu Pandemic can be effective today. HerbalGram, 75, pp. 69-70. [online] Available at: https://www.herbalgram.org/resources/herbalgram/issues/75/table-of-contents/article3153/ [Accessed 14 July 2021].

Ellingwood, F. (1919). American Materia Medica, therapeutics and pharmacognosy. Version published by Southwest School of Botanical Medicine, Bizbee, AZ., pp. 179-192. [online] Available at: https://www.theforagerspath.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/1919-Ellingwood-American-Materia-Medica-Therapeutics-Pharmacognosy.pdf [Accessed 4 July 2021].

Haller, J.S., (1994). Medical protestants: the Eclectics in American medicine, 1825-1939. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

Lloyd, J.U., (1923). Echinacea angustifolia. Lloyd Brothers, Cincinnati. In: R. Bauer and H. Wagner. eds. (1990). Echinacea: Handbuch für Ärzte, Apotheker und andere Naturwissenschaftler.  Stuttgart: WVG., p. 16.

https://www.herbalhistory.org/home/the-eclectic-herbal-treatments-for-pandemic-influenza-1918-19/

https://klemow.wilkes.edu/Eupatorium.html