The Herbarium
Part I · Medicinal herbs
Herb. No. 087
Raspberry leaf
Rubus idaeus
Rosaceae
The cane you grow for fruit — the leaf is an astringent tea with a long midwifery folklore.
Fruit is food. Leaf is a traditional women’s tea — evidence for labor is mixed.
- Parts used
- Leaf · Fruit as food
- Traditional notes
- Traditional late-pregnancy tea · Astringent for loose stools folklore · Mouth rinse
- Grow · USDA 6b
- Cane, USDA 4–8 Canes, not seed. A trellis. In work: May · Jun · Jul · Aug
- Harvest
- Young leaf in spring; fruit in summer.
- Summer-bearing vs everbearing — know which cane you bought.
- Pick leaf from clean, unsprayed growth.
- Net the fruit or you are growing for birds.
Safety
Early pregnancy without midwife/OB agreement Sprayed ornamental canes as tea
Companions
Plant with Garlic.
Keep apart from Potato.
Lore
The leaf, not the fruit, is the midwife’s tea. The fruit is a bonus the birds invoice. Canes are biennial: green this year, berries next, then they die and the plant starts again.
The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.