# 2026-05-21 - Chamomile, Cleavers, and Lemonbalm
While weeding the other day i harvested wild chamomile, cleavers,
and a large quantity of lemonbalm. Earlier this spring i harvested
purple deadnettle and a batch of cleavers. Far enough back in the
past, i would have put these things in the yard waste bin with the
rest of the weeds. Now i make use of them.
I remember wild chamomile as a very young child pulling weeds. I
liked the sweet smell, but i never thought to eat it. Funny enough,
while working a night shift job for a couple of years, i drank a lot
of chamomile tea because it was free and i liked the flavor. At that
time i didn't know that it had a sedative effect. The scientific
name is Matricaria discoidea. Matriciara originated in scientific
classification and not in classical Latin. The root word is
"matrix", which means womb. Discoidea means disc-shaped. I dried
the flowers and i suppose i'll save them for a winter night when i
wish to relax.
I've mentioned cleavers in an earlier post:
[1] Musk Stork's Bill
I don't remember noticing the flowers before, but i saw plenty of
them this time. Tiny little four-petal white flowers like geometric
4-pointed stars. My sister told me that cleavers are in the same
family as coffee, and that they contain a small amount of caffeine.
The tea has a hay-like flavor, which i find neither pleasant nor
unpleasant. I drink it for the kidney health benefits, not for the
flavor. The scientific name is Galium aparine. Galium comes from an
ancient Greek word for bedstraw. Aparine was an ancient Greek word
for cleavers that may have been borrowed from another language.
Lemonbalm is in the mint family and it has a mild, lemony flavor.
The leaves are large, like perilla leaves. They contain a substance
called rosemarin that is also present in rosemary. Studies show that
it improves memory. In other words, it is good for the brain. I
hope to dry them out and make lots of lemonbalm sun tea in the
heat of the summer for free cold drinks. The scientific name for
lemonbalm is Melissa officinalis. I already knew that Melissa was
a Greek word for bee. Officinalis has Latin origin and refers to
its traditional use in apothecaries. It's medicinal and it attracts
honeybees.
I already set aside plenty of dried Purple Deadnettle. Like
lemonbalm, nettles are in the mint family. I read that they are
known for extracting minerals from the soil and being nutritious. I
didn't like the musky, earthy smell of Purple Deadnettle, so it
didn't occur to me to drink it until my sister recommended it. It
grows profusely around here early in spring. At first i didn't like
the flavor, which like the smell, is also musky and earthy. Then i
learned that if i increase the concentration by somewhere between 2x
and 4x, then it begins to taste salty & savory, like a vegetable
broth. This improves the flavor quite a bit, and i figure it comes
from the minerals i mentioned earlier.
Once i read a hagiography of Milarepa. He went through a phase of
living alone in the mountains and his diet primarily consisted of
nettles. He ate so many that it turned his skin green. In one
incident, he dropped his bowl and dislodged a solid green cast of the
bowl made from years of nettle residue. A bowl within the bowl. I
am sure this could be interpreted in several different ways.
The scientific name for Purple Deadnettle is Lamium purpureum.
Lamium originates in a Greek word for throat, named after the
flower's shape. Purpureum means purple.
By the way, the "dead" in deadnettle has innocent origins. It means
that the nettles don't sting. Their stingers are "dead". Also, the
seeds carry a tiny nutritious packet that sugar ants find delicious.
Ants carry the seeds to their nest, eat the packet, and throw the
seed in their underground refuse pile. This is an excellent place
for new purple deadnettles to germinate. The ants are native here
and the purple deadnettles are not, but they get along just fine.
Another weed i plan to harvest is the seeds of the plantains. These
are what psyllium husk powder is made of. This is the base for many
commercial laxatives. I don't need that, but i may as well dry them
out and have some on-hand. The word psyllium is also one of the
names of the family of plant. The one here is Plantago major.
Another piece of herbal trivia i picked up from a book is that in
wartime when the USA lacked access to quinine, we used something
extracted from Dogwood trees instead. It is an effective treatment
for malaria. It is also a stimulant. It is made from the softer
inner bark, and it needs to be cured for a year to make it easier on
the stomach. Dogwood trees grow all over the place here.
tags: health,outdoor
# Footnotes
DIR [1] Musk Stork's Bill
# Tags
DIR health
DIR outdoor