Plantain
Parts Usually Used
The plant, fresh or dried
Description of Plant(s) and Culture
Lance-leaf plantain is a perennial plant; the erect, long-stalked, lanceolate, well-defined veined leaves, each up to 8 inches long, grow from the rootstock on margined petioles in a basal rosette. Several grooved flower stalks may grow from 6-30 inches high, tipped by a short spike of tiny white flowers whose brownish sepals and bracts give the spike its predominantly dark color.
Flowering time is from April to November. Fruiting spike has many small, hard fruits. Other varieties: Common plantain (P. major), pale indian plantain (Cacalia atriplicifolia), and gray ribwort (P. media).
Where Found
A very common weed inhabits bear trodden ground in waste places, backyards, along tracks, meadows, roadsides, agricultural lands, and dooryards in the eastern and Pacific coastal states of the United States, and in Canada and Europe. Native of Europe. Grows practically all over the United States.
Medicinal Properties
Alterative, antiseptic, antisyphilitic, astringent, demulcent, deobstruent, diuretic, expectorant, hemostatic, styptic, vulnerary
Biochemical Information
Mucilage and a heteroside, aucuboside that hyrolizes into aucubine and sugar
Legends, Myths and Stories
Tradition maintains that English plantain springs up wherever English people set foot, no matter what the climate. The botanical name is derived from the word “planta,” a foot, and “ago” a wort (meaning plant) in allusion to the shape of the broad leaves as they lay on the ground. There are 2 kinds of plantain, narrow and wide leaf. Both are good and the whole plant is used in either case.
The Smoky Valley Shoshones made a tea from the whole plant and used as poultices for battle wounds and bruises. Old timers used to kill spiders with plantain tea sprinkled on their webs and around the rooms. ” In China, the common plantain (P. major) is a pest. The seeds were eaten, with a sweetish, cooling taste.
Uses
Historically, herbalists utilized English plantain for cough irritations, hoarseness, and various respiratory complaints, particularly those characterized by mucous congestion such as bronchitis and asthma. Folk traditions also employed the plant for gastrointestinal ailments including gastritis, enteritis, and diarrhea, as well as for its laxative properties. Traditional practitioners administered it for complaints such as nosebleeds, kidney and bladder troubles, jaundice, headaches, spermatorrhea, impaired sexual potency, bedwetting, sciatica, toothaches, dropsy, excessive menstruation, and inflamed eyes, and believed it promoted fertility.
A decoction of the dried leaves was historically reputed to encourage blood coagulation. Herbalists also expressed the fresh juice of the whole plant for chronic catarrhal issues, hay fever, allergic rhinitis, and digestive complaints. Externally, the fresh leaves were crushed and applied as poultices for eczema, burns, scalds, wounds, sores, ulcers, cuts, scratches, boils, hemorrhoids, and insect bites, with practitioners traditionally rubbing the bruised foliage onto stings to address localized swelling and itching.
Bibliography
The Herb Book , by John Lust, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. copyright 1974. , Loma Linda, CA 92354, Original copyright 1939, revised edition 1994 Chinese Medicinal Herbs , compiled by Shih-Chen Li, Georgetown Press, San Francisco, California, 1973. Culpeper’s Complete Herbal & English Physician: Updated With 117 Modern Herbs , by Nicholas Culpeper, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, 1990, (reprint of 1814) The Complete Medicinal Herbal , by Penelope Ody, Dorling Kindersley, Inc, 232 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, First American Edition, copyright 1993 Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants , by Steven Foster and James A.
, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10000 The Nature Doctor: A Manual of Traditional and Complementary Medicine , by Dr. A. , 27 Pine Street (Box 876) New Canaan, CT. 06840-0876. Copyright Verlag A. , Pantheon Books, Knopf Publishing Group, New York, 1994, first edition The Magic of Herbs , by David Conway, published by Jonathan Cape, Thirty Bedford Square, London, England.
, Lotus Press, PO Box 325, Twin Lakes. , Copyright 1988, published 1992 Indian Uses of Native Plants , by Edith Van Allen Murphey, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, copyright 1958, print 1990 Indian Herbalogy of North America , by Alma R. , 180 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014, first printed by the United States Government Printing Office, Washington, in 1928, this Dover edition 1974 An Instant Guide to Medicinal Plants , by Pamela Forey and Ruth Lindsay, Crescent Books (January 27, 1992).
The Rodale Herb Book: How to Use, Grow, and Buy Nature’s Miracle Plants (An Organic gardening and farming book) , edited by William H. Hylton, Rodale Press, Inc. , West Nyack, NY, 1987. The Yoga of Herbs: An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine , by Dr. David Frawley & Dr. Vasant Lad, Lotus Press, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin, Second edition, 1988. The Healing Plants , by Mannfried Pahlow, Barron’s Educational Series, Inc.
, Hauppauge, NY 11788, 1992