A Medicine to Stick With
Sometimes I
read a few pages at random from my collection of medicinal plant books. This can give me tidbits of information which
may lead me to seek the illusive understanding
of the plants and their properties. So
it was when I noticed the entry for Galium apartine or cleavers. This was a weed, common in my garden which
had somehow appealed to me from the first time I touched it years ago. I called it bedstraw because its matted
spongy nature promised a comfortable night’s sleep should one be trapped
outside without a mattress.
Cleavers was
prescribed for psoriasis and other skin issues in the first paragraph, but
following that was mentioned that it was a diuretic and used for urinary
problems, kidney stones, and cancer. Whoa!
Why had I not noticed this before?
I
immediately gathered an armful; boiled it making a tea, which was palatable, and
cooked greens which were not. (Yes they
could be eaten, but one would need to remove the stems which I had not done.)
Andrew Chevallier in his encyclopedia of herbal medicine stated that for cancer
the plant should be juiced. Our juicer
is not a “Champion” but it is a high quality centrifugal model and I set it up
outside to deal with a grocery bag of fresh cleavers.
The results
at first were disappointing. With the
machine running on high speed and me pushing with most of my might, I extracted about
a teaspoon. Then in a moment of insight
I grabbed a juicy handful of the pulp and squeezed hard with my hands, finding the elusive juice.
The squeezed pulp is below the pitcher
I eventually
ended up with about a pint of pretty stout stuff, which I consumed over the
next couple of days. Did it fight my
bladder cancer? Who knows? I won’t be taking it again until next year though,
as my cleavers have gone to seed and these are now accumulating in Lucky’s fur.
The
literature also states that the roasted seeds make a decent coffee substitute,
as both plants re in the Madder family. And
for Jesse, who has a hard core interest in color, it was mentioned that a red
dye can be extracted from the root.
