Paula Grainger

As well as the sealions barking on the wharf, there’s the sound of some very human coughing here in Santa Cruz at the moment. It seems half the population has chest colds or viruses which leave a lingering and highly irritating cough in their wake. So I was pleased to come across a lot of White Horehound (Marrubium vulgare) growing in the splendidly named Pogonip state park, on the edge of the town.

It’s one of my favourite herbs to treat coughs, especially of the rather sticky, stuck-mucusy kind and I also use it in bronchitis and sometimes asthma. I like to think of it as getting down into the lungs and brushing out the mucus, then gently propelling it upwards and out. It doesn’t suppress a cough, as something like Wild Cherry or Coltsfoot would, which is good in this instance, as I want things to move so that the body can recover.

The herb is full of terpines which make it intensely bitter, so I was pleased just now when I strained off the tincture which has been macerating in my kitchen for the last three weeks or so to find that it tastes really horrible. A great sign with horehound. For this reason, I almost never give it as a tea. In my practice I usually combine the tincture with other expectorants like Thyme or Liquorice, immune boosters such as Echinacea and very often my favourite Elderberry for its anti-viral qualities. These have the added benefit of improving the taste somewhat as well as adding their own medicinal actions.

A number of my friends here have been struck by the cough, so today I’m brewing up a batch of Liquorice and Thyme syrup with added elderberries, to which I am also going to add a little of the Horehound tincture. This will give me a nice-tasting syrup with very little alcoholic content, making it suitable for children and people who don’t like alcohol.

Here’s how I’m doing it:

2 Tablespoons dried Liquorice (Glycyrriza glabra)

1 Tablespoon fresh Thyme (Thymus vulgaris)

1 Tablespoon dried Elderberries (Sambucus nigra fructus)

1 pint water

1. In a pan, bring all this up to a slow simmer and let it bubble gently for about 20 minutes or until the kitchen smells good.

2. Strain out the herbs using muslin or kitchen paper in the sieve, as you want to get all the organic material out.

3. Return to the (cleaned out) pan and add 40ml of White Horehound tincture (or you could have added a couple of tablespoons of the fresh herb into the pan at the beginning).

4. Bring it back to the lowest simmer you can and slowly let it reduce to about half.

5. Add sugar or honey (I prefer the latter) in equal volume to the liquid you have left and allow it to cool.

1. Bottle into nice clean bottles or jars and keep it in the fridge. It should be stable in a cool place, but I find it lasts longer in the fridge.

You can take it by the spoonful (1 x 5ml spoonful up to 4 times a day) or add warm water (with or without lemon and/or ginger) to make a hot drink.

This syrup is not suitable for you if you are pregnant or have untreated high blood pressure. If you are taking prescription medication or have a medical complaint, talk to a herbalist or your doctor before self medicating. 

Look what I found! A great big, beautiful Milk Thistle plant! It was tucked up on bank under the trees by the side of the harbour, just a minute from the beach. I didn’t spot it at first as the dappled sunlight filtering through the branches onto its heavily patterned leaves was great camouflage.

Milk Thistle is one of those herbs which once seen, is always recognisable. It’s a sturdy, fine looking thistle with distinctive white markings which look a lot like drizzles of milk. Hence the name – though the seeds are used to increase milk production (galactagogue is the pleasing technical term) so the association may be due to more than just looks. It’s sometimes known as St Mary’s Thistle, in reference to a myth that whilst feeding the baby Jesus, the Virgin Mary spilled her milk onto its leaves causing the markings. Herbs are quite often named for a particular saint (St John’s Wort is another good example) perhaps as a way to help herbalists in the middle ages keep on the right side of the church authorities and avoid association with magic or witchcraft.

The botanists have endowed it with two latin names which are used pretty much interchangeably – causing much confusion for trainee dispensing assistants. I tend to write it as Carduus marianum in my prescriptions, though now I come to think of it, I have it shelved under S for Silybum marianum in my dispensary in London. Perhaps I use Carduus because I am still not grown up enough not to snigger at the name ‘Silly-Bum’.

With its sterling reputation as ‘the liver herb’, it’s a good plant to talk about in January, when so many people are trying to nurse their battered livers after the excesses of the holiday season. It’s always found in hangover cures, although it’s actually most effective taken before venturing out for an evening of carousing.

There are many herbs which have an action on the liver, and they are pretty much all bitter, a taste which stimulates the flow of digestive juices all the way through the system. But Milk Thistle is in a class of its own when it comes to treating all kinds of liver complaints – from the sludgey, fatigued feeling you get after too much celebrating, for supporting the liver during drug treatment, and even for much more serious conditions such as hepatitis and cirrhosis – though these latter should ONLY be treated herbally under the care of a qualified and experienced practitioner, of course.

Research suggests that the ‘magic’ ingredient is silymarin, which is found in the seeds and appears to have two key effects on the liver. It improves the ability of liver cell (hepatocyte) membranes to resist toxins, hence its ability to protect against some if the effects of alcohol. Silymarin has also been shown to increase liver cell production, which means toxins are processed more effectively as they come through. These qualities can be very helpful any time your liver needs to function more effectively. This would include menopause, when hormones are flying around and all need to be excreted by the liver and high cholesterol, since cholesterol is excreted by the liver and can increase in the blood when the liver function is less than optimal.

You can take silymarin as an extract, but as ever, I prefer the whole herb, believing that there are other chemicals in the plant which work in synergy to have the best effect. I often use a tincture in my practice, though I am mindful of using alcohol where there may be liver problems. Capsules work well and I have often given the dried seeds to be added to food. If you choose to use seeds, you do need a coffee grinder (or a pestle and mortar plus elbow grease) to break them up, as they are hard little things, which otherwise will simply pass whole through the digestive system. If you do decide to grind your own, do it in small quantities and store them in an airtight container in the fridge, as like other seeds they are high in oils which can go rancid fairly quickly.

I’ve been told that it grows so prolifically in the dry climate here in Santa Cruz that local herbalists collect their own seeds, so I’ll be keeping an eye on this and any other plants I find as the year progresses and aim to do a little harvesting myself.

It’s citrus season here in Santa Cruz and the Farmers’ markets are awash with lemons, limes, oranges and a huge variety of satsumas, mandarins and clementines (I can never tell which is which). Not to mention grapefruits and pomelos. It’s kind of a spin out for this London herbalist to see locally grown citrus fruit – I still find myself stopping and staring at the loaded trees in people’s gardens. With their rounded shape and blobs of brightly coloured fruit, they look like children’s drawings rather than living, growing plants.

I was lucky enough on Friday to be given a 10lb bag each of lemons and limes. Some of which are in the picture above. One of the things which fascinates me about being here is how it turns my experience of the world around. Everyone knows that lemons are yellow and limes are green, right? Except these aren’t: the lemons are orange and the limes yellow. The latter are called bear limes and are a lot sweeter than the ones I used to buy in England. They have a beautiful fragrance too.

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I was excited to come across this stall at the Farmers’ Market last weekend. Medicinal honeys! Bee Humble Apitherapy are collecting honey from their bees and infusing it with herbs, to create some really interesting products.

The proper term for a herbal honey is an Oxymel, and I’m finding myself more and more drawn to them. The Jujubes I immersed in honey have been in the fridge for some weeks now, and the jar is almost empty, after a nasty flu bug went round my son’s class and he started finding it drizzled over his porridge, spooned into herb teas to take cold to school and poured onto pancakes.

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Studying herbal medicine at university you are encouraged to take a very clinical and scientific approach to the subject. But anyone who goes through the system and starts practicing, soon discovers that there is a lot more to the relationship between plants and humans than can be readily explained scientifically. Many herbalists report examples of the right plant presenting itself just when it is needed.  And I had a lovely instance of that recently.

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Mexican culture has a massive influence here in California and Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrated on 1st November,  is a hugely important Mexican holiday. It’s quite alien to the European mindset: whilst the Victorians were obsessed by, even celebrated, death in art and culture, the trend over the last 100 years or so has been to shove it to the edges of our consciousness, to make it perhaps, the last taboo, something whose eye we avoid catching in the hope that it will not notice us and somehow pass us by.

I’ve been discovering that a central part of Dia de Los Muertos is to create an Ofrenda – a kind of alter dedicated to the departed, with skulls and skeletons, photographs and offerings. A gloriously vibrant confection which celebrates life as much as death. I noticed that older children had written letters to departed loved ones – people, pets, grandparents they had never met and stuck them up on the side of the Ofrenda, and that seems so healthy – so much more positive than simply pretending those loses have never happened.

My son’s school makes one each year and has created what I think is a beautiful tradition. The flowers used to deck the school Ofrenda are what in Europe are called African Marigolds – though they are native to Central America where they are called  Zempoalxochitl. The seeds are planted each spring by the First Grade, who then, as Second Graders, harvest them in the autumn and bring them to the Ofrenda. Some of the flowers are left to seed and the Second Graders who grew them harvest the seeds, package them in hand-decorated envelopes and present them to the current First Graders, who in turn plant them in the Spring so that when they return as Second Graders in Fall, they can harvest them and pass them along. This has been continued at the school for the last thirteen years and it touches me deeply. Such young children learning a simple yet profound truth about the cycle of life and death.

Actually, herbalist quite like them. Herbalist’s husband, on the other hand,  ’luv em’.

Yes, it’s another find at the Farmers’ Market! I keep seeing so many thing there which demonstrate how right Hippocrates was when he wrote ‘Let food be your medicine and medicine your food’.  This was in the downtown Santa Cruz market last week and the sign obviously caught my eye, as did the hard, shiny little fruits which looked like miniature Red Delicious apples. To eat, they have the crunch of an apple and the dry, fibrous sweetness of a fresh date. I thought they were quite pleasant, but my husband found them strangely addictive and finished off most of the bowl in a couple of days.

I had never come across ‘jujubees’ before, so I looked them up when I got home. I discovered that they are usually called Jujubes and that the Latin name is Ziziphus jujuba - which I have heard of. It’s not a herb we use in Western Herbal Medicine, but it’s familiar to my colleagues working with Chinese herbs. A little more research revealed that the fruits are used medicinally throughout Asia and the Middle East. They are usually dried and, as with most Chinese herbs, prepared as a tea or decoction. The main medicinal use seems to be as an immune tonic, with nourishing qualities and, possibly anti-microbial and anti-fungal actions. They are also mucilagenous, so soothing to the throat.

The jujubes are a timely discovery, as the cold and flu season seems to be starting in Santa Cruz and I haven’t come across any elderberries yet (though I’m told they grow up in the mountains).  I plan to look out for more, dry them a bit – which I think they will do pretty much by themselves if I leave them on the kitchen windowsill – and try chopping them and  preserving them in honey. Our local Wholefoods has beautiful untreated local honeys which are kept at beehive temperature in huge serve-yourself tanks. I reckon a spoonful of jujube honey in a tea, with sage for a sore throat or boneset for a fever, could make a good remedy to ward of  the viruses my family encounters. I’ll let you know how it goes!

I have to admit this is mostly here because it is just so damn pretty! These bags of salad are for sale in both our local Farmers’ Markets and I couldn’t resist photographing and buying, who could? The flowers are Calendula, Nasturtium and something called ‘blue buttons’ according to the salad salesman, which looks like some kind of cornflower to me.

Of these, Calendula is obviously the best known herbally for its anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial effects, though I can’t pretend that a scattering of petals will have a lot of medicinal value. However, the salad as a whole contains a great mix of different leaves, including things like rocket (or arugula as it’s called here) and raddiccio.

Eating bitter tasting leaves makes a lot of sense from a health perspective, as the bitter taste itself is a wonderful stimulant to the digestive system. The mouth releases additional saliva in response to bitter tastes and this sets off a cascade of digestive juices all the way through to bile from the liver. Consequently food is broken down, and therefore absorbed, more effectively. It’s why aperitifs are so popular in Europe: they always contain bitter herbs such as Gentian or Wormwood (the infamous Artemisia absinthum of Absinthe fame), which also gives its name to vermouth.

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Something I’ve been delighted to discover in Santa Cruz is an abundance of Borage – it’s in my front yard and all over the beautiful herb and vegetable garden at my son’s new school, which is where  I took the photo above. The Borage has bright, star-shaped blue flowers. It’s threaded through here with a fabulous orange-flowered climber which is completely new to me, but I’m told is a kind of Hawaiian Passionflower.  I’ve yet to find out the latin name or whether it has any of the medicinal qualities of the Passiflora incarnata I use. Do let me know if you can enlighten me.

You don’t often see Borage growing wild in London, though its rampaging look-alike alkanet splashes many city gardens with blue. Both are members of the boraginaceae family, whose other members include comfrey, lungwort and forget-me-nots. All share characteristic furry, slightly bristly leaves and most have blue flowers.

The saying ‘Borage for Courage’ comes from a belief that Roman soldiers took the herb before heading into battle. I don’t know whether that’s true, but it’s informed my prescribing on a number of occasions, I really do feel this herb can help people when they are unsure whether they can face the task ahead. I feel there are many aspects to Herbal Medicine. We are taught the science and pharmacology at college and it’s crucial to understand those, of course. But as I have said before, I think there is a lot more to the relationship between the plant and animal kingdoms: ways in which the spirit of the plant can interact with our own unconscious. Read more »

My family and I are now getting settled into our new home in Santa Cruz, California. There is a great tradition of herbal medicine here and the mild Mediterranean climate is bliss for a huge range of plants. I’m very excited about getting back to blogging so I can share my observations and discoveries, and a little about how I’m finding being An English Herbalist in Santa Cruz.

To kick off, here is a photo I took at our local Farmers Market last weekend. I wasn’t that surprised to see dandelions being sold in this land where salad is almost a religion – after all they are cultivated in France where they know a bit about food. But I wasn’t expecting to see such big leaves being sold at this time of year. The small, tender spring leaves are more usually used in salads. I’m wondering whether these are intended to be steamed, like spinach. We’re off to the market again tomorrow, so if they are there again, I’ll ask the farmer and report back.

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