Habitat: Woods and other shady places.

Features: Stem eight inches to one foot in height, slender, smooth, four-sided, brittle. Leaves lanceolate, rather rough at the edges, in rings of, usually, eight round the stem. Flowers tubular, with flattened mouth, divided into four white, cross-shaped petals, on long, axillary stalk. The dried herb smells like new-mown hay.

Part used: Herb.

Action: Hepatic, tonic.

In faulty biliary functioning and general liver sluggishness. Tonic properties particularly applicable to the digestive apparatus. Dose, two tablespoonfuls of the 1 ounce to 1 pint boiling water infusion.

WORMWOOD.

Artemisia absinthium. N.O. Compositae.

Synonym: Ajenjo, Old Woman.

Habitat: Waste ground.

Features: Stem two feet high, whitish, silky hairs. Leaves downy, three inches long by one and a half inches broad, pinnatifid, stalked, lobes linear, obtuse. Flowers (August) pale yellow with greenish tint, small, globular, clustered in erect, leafy panicle.

Part used: Herb.

Action: Tonic, stomachic, anthelmintic.

Infusion of 1 ounce to 1 pint of boiling water, taken in wineglass doses for poor digestion and debility. A reliable remedy for worms.

YARROW.

Achillea millefolium. N.O. Compositae.

Synonym: Milfoil, Nosebleed, Thousand-leaf.

Habitat: A wayside herb, also often seen in the pasture and meadow lands of Europe and the United States.

Features: Yarrow has a rough, angular stem, and grows from twelve to eighteen inches in height. The alternate leaves are pinnatifid, clasp the stem at the base, are slightly woolly, and are cut into very fine segments. The flowers are small, white (occasionally pink or purplish), daisy-like, and bloom in dense, flattened, terminal

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corymbs, appearing at their best in July.

Part used : Herb.

Action: Diaphoretic, stimulant and tonic.

The herb is extremely useful in colds and acute catarrhs of the respiratory tract generally. As it has the effect of opening the pores, thus permitting free perspiration, Yarrow is taken at the commencement of influenza and in other feverish conditions. An infusion of 1 ounce to 1 pint of foiling water is drunk warm in wineglass doses. As a very popular remedy for influenza colds it is usually combined with Elder flowers and Peppermint in equal quantities. It was sometimes prescribed by the old herbalists as a tonic in nervous debility, but there are many better herbal medicines for this condition.

YERBA SANTA.

Eriodictyon glutinosum. (Eriodictyon californicum).

Synonym: Bearsweed, Mountain Balm.

Habitat: Grown in, and imported from, California.

Features: Leaves elliptic-lanceolate, serrate, about three inches by one inch, shiny above, white down underneath. Taste and odour, aromatic.

Part used: Leaves.

Action: Expectorant, tonic.

In catarrhal affections of the respiratory organs. Often a constituent of asthma prescriptions.

Herbal Manual by Harold Ward - Page 101

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