By Blair Doucette

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August 20, 2024

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Medicinal herbs exist everywhere, dotting our landscapes as gentle reminders from nature that they’re here and ready to help. Walking outside, no matter where you live – city, country, desert, forest, etc. – you can see medicinal plants dwelling in the cracks and the open spaces, wherever they can find a home. Their bloom cycle is tied to the seasons, inhaling and exhaling with the earth’s rotations. We are happy to begin a new series to share an herb of the month to foster your education on naturally derived herbs all around you. Let’s take a walk together and explore our first herb, kicking off our monthly learning series!

 

Common name: Agrimony 

Latin name: Agrimonia eupatoria

Part Used: Leaf

Benefits: Mucosal Membranes, Digestive System, Liver, Gallbladder, Urinary Tract, Nervous System, Emotionally uplifting

Taste/Energetics: Bitter, Astringent, Cooling, Drying, Nervine Relaxant

 

History: Agrimony’s small yellow star-shaped flowers have been used in Western herbalism for centuries. Written accounts of its benefits date back to the 5th century. Since the age of antiquity, agrimony has been recommended to individuals for complications with ulcers and liver and gallbladder diseases. The Elizabethan poet Michael Drayton once hailed it as an “all-heal.” This herb can be found in writings spanning massive time periods, from the days of ancient Greece up to British folklore. 

 

Benefits: Agrimony is a gentle herb in the rose family, brought to the Americas from Europe for its many medicinal properties. Topically, its leaves can be ground into a poultice to support wound care, prevent scarring, or dry up certain topical infections like infections. Internally, you can infuse agrimony into a tea and benefit from its gentle support for digestion, breathing, urination, as well as chronic non-healing wounds. Energetically, agrimony is cooling, drying, and astringent within the body. It can help combat conditions like diarrhea, lung inflammation, liver conditions, bleeding disorders, skin ailments, and support the mucous membranes (mouth, eyes, nose, lungs, and stomach). This is partly due to the relatively high concentration of tannins in agrimony. Tannins typically taste pretty bitter and work to tighten the mucosal linings around your gastrointestinal tract.

 

Additionally, a bitter-tasting herb often indicates a relationship with the liver and gallbladder. This promotes healthy digestion and extending these benefits to urinary tract issues and kidney conditions. As a bitter and tonifying herb, Agrimony can restore, tighten, and invigorate loose tissue back to a balanced state. Its high tannin count increases gastric secretions, essentially readying your stomach to digest correctly and promoting nutrient absorption. Additionally, agrimony is known as a nervine relaxant, meaning it soothes the nerves. So, on the one hand, agrimony is a wonderful tonifier for tissues that are too lax. And on the other hand, it can down-regulate nervous system overstimulation. Isn’t that amazing? 

 

Herbs are useful not only for the physical body but also for the emotional and spiritual body. Emotionally, agrimony has been recommended for individuals who may hide their displeasure or unhappiness behind masks of cheerfulness, not ready to let anyone see their darker sides. In some cases, individuals may also turn to alcohol or other drugs to help them seem happy and upbeat. According to the concepts of flower essences, agrimony’s positive potential is to help individuals accept the darker sides of their lives and personalities. This can also help make peace with the ebbs and flows of life, finding gratitude.

 

Herbs and plants have a beautiful way of helping the physical, emotional, and spiritual body. Thanks for taking a walk with us for our first herb of this series. Reach out to us if there are other herbs you’re interested in learning more about, and we’ll add them to our future writings. 

 

And if you want to include more herbal medicine into your health or existing care plans, our naturopathic doctors at Richmond Natural Medicine have extensive knowledge of herbal remedies and can customize blends that are specific and individualized for you. For more information on becoming a new patient or getting back on the schedule, call our front desk at 804-977-2634

 

If you’d like to read more, check out our previous post for Heart Healthy Herbs. 

 

Having trouble sleeping? Take a look at our recommendations for Sleepy Time Herbs!

 

Avoid that back-to-school slump, here are some Herbs for the Brain.

 

Read more here for pointers on using Herbs in Your Home and keeping your pantry stocked!