Category — Medicinal plants

Even aphids can be beautiful in the right setting…and they haven’t bothered this umckaloabo plant a bit.

 If you’re looking for a bright, splashy geranium, Pelargonium sidoides isn’t it. But if you’re looking for subtle beauty and healing power, this may be a plant for you.

  First of all, let’s get our terminology straight: what we usually call geraniums are actually pelargoniums. Long ago, someone categorized the scented, multi-color-leaved, and bright-flowering plants as geraniums. The botanists have corrected this error, but ordinary people (and some garden catalogues) go right on calling them geraniums. Botanical geraniums are  much more inconspicuous, low-growing plants, and some of them are native to the U.S.   Pelargoniums, on the other hand, are native to South Africa. (Pelargonium comes from the Greek pelargos, “stork”; the seedhead is supposed to resemble a stork’s bill.)

 Pelargonium sidoides came to European gardens in a different way than a lot of the splashier pelargoniums. In the 1800s, the story goes, a German man was sent to South Africa to cure his tuberculosis. A dry, warm, climate was often recommended for this condition, which wasn’t considered curable in Europe. A different climate and careful living could prolong the life of a tuberculosis patient, but they would always have the disease. And sooner or later, it would get them. The German man had a different experience. Somehow, he connected with a traditional healer who gave him umckaloabo. And a strange thing happened: the tuberculosis went away. It even stayed away when the former tuberculosis patient returned to Germany, there to tout his miracle cure.

In the 20^th and 21^st century, European research showed what that South African healer had known all along: umckaloabo is effective in healing respiratory illness of almost any kind: bronchitis, sinus troubles, plain old colds. Even very serious respiratory problems. I know that for a fact, because I had chronic bronchitis for more than four decades-before I started using Umcka extract. Each winter, I’d get at least one hellacious case of gut-wrenching, hollowly resonant coughing spells for a week or two, especially if I caught a cold or flu. Now I don’t, because I take a dropperful of umcka extract the minute I feel that weird sensation in my chest that used to come before an onslaught. I’ve recommended Umcka to many people: for those coughs that just hung on for weeks and weeks, and especially for children, because unlike most other cough preparations, Umcka has no nasty sedatives in it. You can take it and think and move just like a real human being–a decided advantage. By the way, I’m not being paid to advertise–I just find that umcka is so far superior to any respiratory remedy I’ve tried that I want to pass the information along. It’s made a huge difference in my life.

I am troubled by some recent information I’ve found: since it’s become so popular, umcka is now threatened in its native territory. The people who live there naturally want to improve their lot, and it has been overgathered. All the more reason for growing our own, to make sure there are more plants in circulation. 

I like to grow the plants I use for healing–it’s a good way to understand them better–so I was thrilled when I found that one of our local nurseries had Pelargonium sidoides for sale. It’s not one of your easier-to-find geraniums, but it takes the same care as the usual kinds. They don’t take freezes, and while they like sun, in hotter climates you’ll want to give them part shade so they don’t fry. Judging by an abandoned greenhouse I found years ago on the southern California coast, pelargoniums thrive by any ocean where the weather doesn’t go below freezing. They need drainage, and they need to dry out between waterings. Goodwin Creek gardens recommends halving whatever fertilizer you generally use. Maybe I’ll remember this, or maybe I’ll just continue fertilizing them when I fertilize my other plants. 

Pelargonium sidoides doesn’t have scented leaves, but I love the soft hairy grey-green of their foliage, one of the typical geranium shapes. 

  And then there are the flowers:

   My umckaoloba may never get big enough for me to make my own tincture. I have to take it in when winter comes, and since my place is small, I have to limit the size of the pot. But I’m happy to make a closer acquaintance with a plant who’s kept me and my neighbors from debilitating illness. And I’m grateful for the amazing line of connections that has brought this subtly beautiful South African native to my back porch. 

      References:

Goodwin Creek Gardens - These folks literally wrote the book on pelargoniums–Scented Geraniums: Knowing, Growing, & Using Pelargoniums,  At last count, they grow 75 varieties at their mail-order nursery, specializing in the scented-leaf and zonal-leaf types, which generally have smaller flowers. They don’t carry P. sidoides, though. 

Logee’s offers Pelargonium sidoides among their many wonderful items. Their plants always arrive healthy and in good shape.

  Thyme Will Tell is the site where I got the info on the over-harvesting of umckaloabo.  The information on Pelargonium sidoides is tucked at the bottom of this general article on pelargoniums (or geraniums).

Earlier in the year, I posted a picture of California buckeye (Aesculus californica) leaf buds. I thought it was only fair to show the rest of it. The most spectacular part, of course, is the amazing flower spikes, about 8 to 12 inches (20 t0 30 cm) long, with a mild scent and amazing coloration, if you look closely.

But even apart from their flowers, buckeyes are stellar plants. Many might disagree with me, calling them shrubby or weedy. And it is true that, while they are the first trees to show that brilliant chartreuse-green in spring and then fan their leaves out, they are also the first to drop their leaves, usually sometime in September, when all the other leaves are still growing strong, and the dying falling buckeye leaves are a bit depressing in an already-sere landscape.

Buckeyes are prominent natives in my landscape, and they used to be a major food for the Pomo Indians, who leached the poisons out of them in order to eat the meaty, chestnut-like nut. Their name for this tree was De-sa Ka-la, which means “food tree”.

It may sound odd, then, to hear that other native Californians (possibly the Pomo, too) used them unleached, to stun fish: put in a river pool, fish die and float to the surface. Not a method for sport-fishing, but used judiciously, a good way to be sure of fish when you depend on them for food.

The substances that poison the fish can also poison human beings with nerve and respiratory failure: the bark, twigs, flowers, and leaves are as dangerous as the unleached nuts, which are a beautiful shiny glossy brown and fit beautifully in the palm for stroking with your fingers. (I’m sure this is stress-reducing). These toxins are also in the Ohio buckeye Aesculus glabra.

The Asian horse chestnut (Aesculus hipposcastanum), on the other hand, was used medicinally in Europe for intermittent fevers and respiratory problems-though it was also known to be a nerve poison, like its American relatives. (If you find this strange, think for a moment about the toxicity of many medical drugs today.) Its folk use was in salves for rheumatism and hemorrhoids. The skin probably filtered the active ingredients somewhat, so that it was relatively safe. These trees are often found in the eastern U.S., and have looser flower spikes with hints of pink and yellow in them, if you look close.

California buckeyes have adapted well to their environment; while they tend to like streamsides and wet places, they also grow in places with no obvious water. I don’t know if they indicate a high water table or if they are just very tolerant of a wide range of places. They grow in semishade as well as full sun.

Buckeyes also range in size and shape: they can be small shrubby plants several feet high, and they can be many-branched tall trees up to about thirty feet. I’d guess this has to do with available water and nutrients. Their bark is smooth and pale, although in my area it tends to accrue lichen and moss-both of which accentuate its appearance, to my mind, rather than mar it.

I’ve never grown a buckeye, simply because there are so many around already, I’ve never felt the need. If you want to try, I’d suggest choosing a variety that suits your area. Rather than struggling to fit the dry-summer-loving California buckeye into a cold or wet-summer place, choose A. glabra (Ohio buckeye) or A. hippocastanum (horse chestnut). Horse chestnuts are tall beautiful thick-trunked trees, so if you want to grow one of them, make room.

Winter hardiness is another thing to consider when choosing your variety. California buckeyes grow only in lower elevations, which means they will take some freezing, but probably would not do well in prolonged-cold winters.

It’s interesting to ponder that a tree that is entirely toxic can also be a food staple. Yet more proof that inconsistency is not a strictly human trait.

References

LoLo Westrich, California Herbal Remedies, Gulf Publishing Company, 1989

Charles F. Millspaugh, American Medicinal Plants, originally published in 1892. Mine is a Dover reprint.

Here’s a plant I have to travel to see: it only grows on open, sunny slopes.

I don’t have to travel very far, though. Not far down the road are friends with luscious yerba santa in full bloom. It’s another one of those native plants that a lot of people wouldn’t think of as a garden plant, but I’d have it in my garden if I could. Probably someplace toward the woods, so it could blend in with its surroundings the way it ‘s doing in this picture. It’s a very leggy small shrub-those fluffs of leaves you see are what happens up top; underneath they have storky long woody stems.

Yes, it’s leggy and awkward, and shaggy with old leaves in winter (they’re more-or-less evergreen). But it grows in hard clay soil with no summer water. And it’s a plant with hidden powers. Yerba santa’s resinous scent–most pungent on a hot day–is refreshing, and emblematic of its ability to heal. The leaves can relieve stubborn respiratory problems, including bronchitis and pollution allergies and headaches.

You use them this way: get a covered pot (enamel, glass, or stainless steel; other pots will react with the herbs, and it won’t be a good reaction). Simmer a few leaves, covered, until the water shows some color. Turn off the heat, put the pot on a table or floor, and drape the largest towel you’ve got over your head. Remove the pot lid, and inhale the steam for as long as you dare. (Hint: keep far away at first, and move in as it cools. That steam is hot.)

After this, you can add to the treatment by lying down with the warm leaves sticking to your sinuses-remember you have sinuses in your forehead. (Try putting them on your temples if you have a headache.) It sounds silly, but there’s a kind of cooling relaxation that spreads out from the leaves, taking away the headache you may not even have been aware existed.

If you’re really brave, you can drink the tea, but it’s an acquired taste. It’s a flavor blend of pine sap with saccharine and something really weird and unnameable. I’ve drunk it, but only when I was desperate. Others swear by it. You decide.

If you want to try growing yerba santa and gathering your own leaves, they’re best after the flowers bloom–unlike most leaves, which are better before. Yerba santa’s resins develop best after bloom and in hot sun. Dry them and save them for a rainy mucousy day. (You can also get the dried leaves through herbal suppliers.)

If you pick yerba santa from the wild, do be sure to find a good stand before you pick, and take only a few leaves from each plant. Denuding a wild plant or decimating a small stand of them is not a good way to connect to either nature or healing. As a flower essence (not a scented oil, but a homeopathic remedy derived from the blooms), yerba santa helps emotional constriction–getting things off your chest, so to speak. Maybe this is why its common name means, roughly, “holy herb”.

Altogether a useful and, to my eye, beautiful plant.