Beth’s Natural Way – Plantain

Truxton, NY
Phone/Fax: 607-842-6863
E-mail: bethsnaturalway@yahoo.com

The plantain plant grows in open sunny meadows, lawns, waste places and every nock and cranny around. This herb is so common that you probably walk over hundreds of the plants a day and do not even realize it. Something so“plain” but OHH!!! Such an important food and medicine.

FOLK NAMES: Cuckoo’s bread, Englishman’s foot, the leaf of Patrick, Patrick’s dock, ripple grass, St. Patrick’s leaf, snakebite, snakeweed, waybread, white man’s foot, rat tail plantain.

LATIN NAME: Plantago major.

ELEMENT: Earth.

POWERS: Healing, strength, protection and snake repelling.

MEDICINAL PARTS: Leaves, seed and root.

CONSTITUTES: High in beta-carotene, calcium, chlorophyll, crude and dietary fiber, fat, zinc, sodium, silica, protein, iridoide monoterpenes, mucilages, flavonoids, caffeic acid esters, tannins, hydrooxycoumarins, saponins (trace), silicic acid.

PROPERTIES: Promotes healing, tonic, demulcent, astringent, diuretic, expectorant, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiphlogistic, antifungal, styptic, vulnerary.

MAGICAL USES: To cure a headache, wrap the head in a red wool cloth and plantain leaves. If this is put beneath feet it will help with exhaustion. Hang plantain in the car to ward of evil. Having plantain root in your pocket will protect one from snakebites.

INTERNAL USES: The seeds are called psyllium, and are a bulk cleaner of mucus or toxins from the colon. The seeds with a lot of water will help constipation and the seeds will little water will help diarrhea. Roots put on the gums of a sore tooth will draw out the infection. Leaves will help diarrhea, dysentery, inflammatory bowel conditions, hemorrhoids, breast cancer, thrush, and colon cancer. Promotes healing in the body.

EXTERNAL USES: Leaves put on any snakebite, mosquito bites, bee stings will help draw out the poisons. As a poultice for ulcers, varicose veins, shingles, wounds, eye ulcers, pain and inflammation of joints.

HARVEST: The leaves are picked anytime during the growing season, the roots are dug up just after a rain in the fall and the seeds are just before snow flies.

USE AS: Teas, extracts, powders, poultices, wraps, and chew.

PRECAUTIONS: None known.

Vibrantly,
Beth Hill of Beth’s Natural Way!

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