Find a plant by how you feel

Calendula

Calendula officinalis

Pot marigold — the herbalist's everyday skin flower.

minor wounds

Chickweed

Stellaria media

A tender star-flowered green for cooling itchy skin and a spring salad.

minor wounds

Comfrey

Symphytum officinale

Knitbone — a legendary wound-and-bone poultice whose internal use is no longer defensible.

minor wounds

Gotu kola

Centella asiatica

A marsh pennywort eaten for skin, memory folklore, and circulation — a salad herb in the tropics.

minor wounds

Horsetail

Equisetum arvense

A living fossil of jointed green stems — silica folklore for hair and bone, and a weed that will own a wet bed.

minor wounds

Myrrh

Commiphora myrrha

The other temple resin — a thorny Somali and Arabian shrub whose bitter gum is incense, a mouthwash, and a nativity prop.

minor wounds

Plantain

Plantago major

The ribbed lawn weed you step on — a first-aid leaf for bites and scrapes.

minor wounds

Self-heal

Prunella vulgaris

The purple lawn mint you already step on — a traditional throat gargle and wound wash.

minor wounds

St. John's wort

Hypericum perforatum

Sunshine-yellow roadside herb for low mood — famous, effective in mild cases, and a notorious interactor.

minor wounds

Tea tree

Melaleuca alternifolia

Paperbark of New South Wales — a topical oil plant, famously not the tea camellia, and not a beverage.

minor wounds

Usnea

Usnea spp.

Old-man’s beard — a traditional lichen gargle and skin wash, habitat-sensitive, not a wild-stripped tea.

minor wounds

Witch hazel

Hamamelis virginiana

A winter-blooming shrub whose bark and leaf make the classic cooling astringent.

minor wounds

Yarrow

Achillea millefolium

Achilles' woundwort — a bitter, aromatic styptic for fevers, cuts, and heavy moons.

minor wounds