5 Medicinal Plants to Spot on Your Next Hike
Along with gorgeous views and fresh air, learning to recognize useful plants along the trail can help you feel at home in the forest. The plants listed here are all easy to identify and often abundant along trails. Each of these five plants has an interesting story of its medicinal use not often included in guidebooks. The pictures were taken from National Parks and Forests in the west, but the plants are common across the US. These plant stories are just for fun, so be sure to talk to your doctor if you’re interested in using any of these cures yourself.
1. Willow bush (Salix spp.)
Willow bush
The willow bush is abundant along streams and creeks. You can identify willow by its thin silvery leaves along each woody branch. Chewing on willow bark has been used for pain relief by people as far back as Hippocrates. The pain reliever, salicin, is found in the bark. Salicin is easily converted to salicylic acid in the body and is also found in the bark of Spireabushes. Salicylic acid in its purified form was too harsh on stomachs to be useful for pain relief, so chemists working for Bayer made an acetylated form of salicylic acid and called it aspirin (the “a” in aspirin is for acetylated and the “spir” is from the Spirea bush). Bayer, a German company at the time, was unable to obtain a patent in Germany for aspirin, so moved to the US to begin producing and selling Bayer aspirin. It is interesting to note that salicylic acid, when consumed along with other tannins and plant constituents from willow bark, is not as irritating to the stomach as when in its isolated form. Willow bark extract is still used by some for relieving arthritis pain.
2. Mullein (Verbascum densiflorum)
Mullein
Mullein is a fuzzy-leafed plant with a sprig of yellow flowers. The flowers only appear every other year. The large, fuzzy leaves are the best way to identify this plant. Mullein was commonly used by Indigenous healers across the US to treat respiratory illness. Interestingly, the leaves were dried and smoked to help rid people of coughs. Although this seems counter to advice we hear today, it makes sense that smoking the herb is an efficient way to get volatile oils in the leaves directly to the affected tissues. Although smoking these leaves is less common today, inhaling fumes from an herbal steam bath or tea is still a practice prescribed by medicinal herbalists to treat respiratory illness. Mullein use also stands up to research; reports show mullein is both anti-inflammatory and a cough suppressor. Furthermore, flowers from this plant can be soaked in a carrier oil to make “ear oil,” and used treat ear infections.
3. Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris)
Mugwort
The Artemisia genus has been especially helpful to people all over the world and in many different cultures. Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), shown at left, was once used in place of hops for brewing beer and is believed to bring vivid dreams by placing a sprig under the pillow or drinking a tea made from its leaves at bedtime. It can be identified by its ragged light green to silvery leaves that are fuzzy underneath. Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) is used to make smudges to cleanse the air before some Native American religious ceremonies. It is also used in moxibustion, or burning herb fibers during or after acupuncture. Finally, Artemisia annua, or sweet wormwood, was the species of Artemisia Tu Youyou used to discover artemisinin to treat soldiers infected with malaria during the Vietnam war. Although her discovery was kept secret at first, she eventually shared her discovery with the world and received the Nobel Prize in 2015.
4. Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium)
Feverfew
This beautiful plant has tiny white flowers with yellow centers and small leaves with ragged edges. It is in the Asteracae family (along with the daisy and chrysanthemum). The leaves are used to treat migraines and arthritis pain. It also grows abundantly in Europe and has roots in European phytotherapy. The use of this plant for migraines has been so well-studied that allopathic doctors also frequently recommend its use to patients. The individual active components in the leaf have been isolated and identified by researchers, but the therapy is still most effective in the fresh or recently dried leaf. However, this plant can also stimulate the uterus, so don’t eat a leaf, especially if you’re pregnant, without talking to your doctor first.
5. Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Yarrow
Yarrow can be identified by looking for the white array of dense, small white flowers with thick feathery, fuzzy leaves. Since similar flowers are also seen on Queen Anne’s lace and other common wildflowers, the key to identifying yarrow is to look closely at the leaves. It is also abundant across Europe as well as North America and has been well-studied. The preparation and use of yarrow is well documented in both the US Pharmacopoeia and the British Pharmacopoeia. Tinctures (made from an alcohol and water mixture) and infusions (made with just hot water, no alcohol) are sipped by patients to reduce fevers or stimulate digestion. Flavonoids in the leaves and flowers are thought to be the medicinally active components. Yarrow has also been used topically for wound-healing.
National Parks and Forests Conservation Efforts of Native Plants
If you’re planning a trip to a National Park, I recommend you buy a guide specific to the park in the gift store for identifying plants along the trails. Remember to enjoy the beauty, interest, and abundance of plants along the trail, but not to collect plants from National Parks and Forests. National Parks and Forests play an important role in conservation and ensuring these plants remain abundant for future generations. Shown here is a sign outside a plant conservation site at Tahoe National Forest. The Tahoe Yellow Cress was almost extinct before this restoration project began, but has made a great comeback thanks to these efforts. For more about this project, visit US Fish and Wildlife Service. You can also donate to National Parks Conservation Association to help conservation efforts.
To purchase these herbs from a business with sustainable practices:
For healthy summer skin, you want this vitamin
Vitamin C, also called ascorbic acid, breaks down in the sun. Therefore, it doesn’t do your skin much good to use a product with vitamin C then go out in the sun for a few hours. Instead, look for after-sun products with vitamin C and make sure it is packaged in dark bottles. The vitamin can also break down in products over time. Therefore, freshly made products with a short shelf life help ensure the vitamin is still in its active state.
Skin absorption of vitamin C
You should look for products with vitamin C and as few other ingredients as possible. Only about 20% of ascorbic acid is absorbed through your skin, so a higher concentration of the vitamin means more will make it to your skin cells. Long ingredient lists mean very low concentrations of the ingredients near the end of the list. Also, fewer ingredients means fewer chemicals for vitamin C to react with, inactivating it before it reaches your skin. (Percutaneous absorption of vitamin C)
Vitamins C and E have a synergistic effect
Look for skin products with both vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and vitamin E (tocopherol) in the ingredient label. Research shows that vitamins C and E work together in skin cells as antioxidants, to repair damage from the sun, and to stimulate collagen production by fibroblasts in the skin. In addition, vitamin C helps protect and regenerate vitamin E, amplifying the positive effects when they are together. (Synergy between Vitamins C and E)
Remember we can also get these vitamins from our diet
Research shows that these vitamins can be absorbed through our lotions to our skin cells, but if we eat a healthy diet, our skin cells should also have a good amount of these vitamins. We hear it all the time, but a diet rich in plants is the best way to make sure all our cells have the vitamins they need. We should think of the vitamins in our skincare as filling in the gaps and providing extra help, especially after a day in the sun.
Skin Absorptivity - What ingredients in our lotions stay at the surface and what ingredients get absorbed?
Our skin forms a protective barrier to the outside world, so we think of our skin as impermeable. But the truth is, our skin is selectively permeable. This term means that some small molecules pass through our skin. For example, absorption through our skin is a drug delivery method used by the nicotine patch. The drug in the patch is a small molecule that is absorbed through all the layers of skin cells and makes it into our blood stream. Some hormones and pain medications are also delivered in this way.
Most components in lotions work at the surface to from a moisture barrier. If molecules are absorbed through the skin, they are thought to mainly work in the outer-most layers of our skin, but not make it into our bloodstream. However, some carbon-based sunscreens were found to make it all the way into our bloodstream. This is worrisome because these ingredients were only approved by the FDA to be safe for external use. The FDA approval process for synthetic food ingredients or medicines is very different and much more extensive than the approval process for ingredients in personal care products like lotions.
CNN covered this important study published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. This study showed that carbon-based sunscreens (oxybenzone, avobenzone, and others) are absorbed through the skin and are found in the bloodstream after just one day of use.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/06/health/sunscreen-bloodstream-fda-study/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/21/health/sunscreen-dangers-chemicals-bloodstream-wellness/index.html
We can make predictions about what can be absorbed through the skin by determining what compounds can cross membranes. Biochemists have studied membrane permeability extensively and found that small, oil-loving compounds can cross cell membranes easily while water-loving molecules are must less likely to cross. Some water-loving molecules, like sugars and other nutrients have special transport mechanisms in our digestive system to bring them into the bloodstream, but these transport mechanisms are not all present in our skin cells. We can determine which molecules are water-loving and which are oil-loving by stirring them in both oil and water and seeing which substance they mix with most easily. For example, sugar dissolves in water, so is water-loving and requires help crossing a cell membrane.
Carbon-based sunscreens are oil-loving, and were found to make it into our bloodstream. What other components of lotions are small oil-loving molecules? Parabens and phenoxyethanol are present in many personal care products like lotions to give them a long shelf life. Studies are still underway to determine if these ingredients are safe inside our bodies. The Environmental Working Group, http://www.ewg.org, is a good place to stay up to date on these studies.
Vitamin E is also oil-loving and likely to be absorbed, but it is also present and safe in food. Small, oil-loving molecules that have already been approved by the FDA for food products are likely also safe in personal care products. Avaisn chooses food-safe ingredients in our products to ensure product safety.