Herbpardy

Amazing Herbs

100

Much more than a crop cover, cattle forage and nitrogen fixer, my roots go down 60 feet, pulling deep minerals to the surface to build your bones.

Medicago sativa, Alfalfa

200

Cordage, food, medicine. This plant has it all, including a defense - trichomes - little hairs that inject formic acid under the skin, causing urticaria.

Urtica dioica, Stinging Nettle

300

Seedheads of this plant inspired velcro

Arctium lappa, Burdock

400

First opening in February, this strange flower keeps an internal temperature in the low 60's to melt away ice and snow, and attract flies with it's fetid odor

Symplocarpus foetidus, Skunk cabbage

500

Since ancient Egyptian times, this soothing root used to be whipped with water sugar and gum for an tasty confection.

Althea officinalis, Marshmallow Root

Nomenclature

100

From the old French word meaning, “to wash”

Lavandula spp., Lavender

200

This plant name, from the Medieval Latin, "dens leonis", and later French, Dent-de-lioun

"Lion Tooth", Dandelion, Taraxacum officinale

300

This Mediterranean plant's common name translates to "dew of the sea"

And if you forgot that, it's also called the herb of remembrance...

Rosmarinus officinalis, Rosemary

400

This spicy, aromatic, culinary medicinal root takes its name from the Middle Indic "singabera", from the Sanskrit srngaveram, meaning srngam "horn" + vera- "body," so called from the shape of its root buds.

Zingiber officinalis, Ginger

from Old English gingifer, gingiber, from Late Latin gingiber, from Latin zingiberi, from Greek zingiberis, from Prakrit singabera, from Sanskrit srngaveram, from srngam "horn" + vera- "body," so called from the shape of its root

500

Black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood;

An excess or deficiency of any of these isn't particularly funny.

The four humors

Word Play

100

Our Cap's sick!

Better warm her up

to put some pep in that step!

Capsicum anuum, Cayenne Pepper

200

Raising kids in a square family, this mom's got heart!

Motherwort, Leonurus cardiaca

300

With pungent aroma, these roots from the mud,

warm the stomach and move the dark blood,

A flavor like it? Certainly there's none -

To call it angelic, would that be a pun?

Angelica, Angelica spp.

400

This pied Piper plays to all,

In the gut,

Helping herbs pass through the wall.

Piper nigrum, Piper spp., Black Pepper

500

I'd be a lot less tense if I could find my hat...

beanie...

 toboggan...

Scullcap, Scuttelaria lateriflora

Historical herbies

100

Isolated in 1828, and thus formulated into Aspirin, this tree was used long before for inflammation, fevers and pain, without the side effect of ulcers and leaky gut.

Salix alba, Salix spp., White Willow

200

Settlers learned it from the Lakota peoples,

whose use is not just for colds and flus;

Snakeroot became the 20th century's #1 one seller.

Echinacea angustifolia, Echinacea spp., Echinacea

300

Jamestown colony's main export

second only to tobacco,

Used for spice, syphilis, gumbo, root beer

and of making MDMA

Sassafras albidum, Sassafras

400

It's ingredient list lost to history, this mix of aromatic herbs kept four thieves out of jail and the bubonic plague at bay.

Fire Cider

500

Plant which, in the 1930s to protect soil from erosion and to use as living fences for livestock, the U.S. Soil Conservation Service distributed over 34 million free cuttings in VA and NC. 

Now a thorny situation, it has now spread to over 40 states and is considered highly invasive is the Eastern United States.

Multiflora rose, Rosa Multiflora

Family Dinner

100

a family of sour

5-petaled flowers,

astringing the courage

and heart when one cowers. 

The Rosaceae, Rose Family

200

Aster Family, Asteraceae

300

Petals in a cross, distinct seed pods, spicy detoxifying sulfur compounds...ketchup's sibling.

Brassicaeae, Mustard Family

400

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme,

Which one of these is crashing the party?

Parsley, Petroselenium crispum, (Apiaceae - Parsley/Carrot)

500

Mint Family, Lamiaceae