In our busy world where we often rush from one thing to the next, don’t get enough quality sleep and stress is often a part of daily life, sometimes a little gentle help to relax without outright sedating is helpful.
You might think there isn’t much out there in the wild to help with this but there are a couple of useful plants which can make a difference.
Wild lettuce, Lactuca virosa, is a common wayside plant, related to our garden lettuce but more bitter tasting. They do say eating ordinary lettuce helps you get a good night’s sleep, the advice being to eat a lettuce sandwich for supper, but the wild lettuce is stronger in action.
Culpeper states the whole plant should be used, leaves, plus roots, which have a white milky latex sap and a bitter taste. The effects are cooling and relaxing. In modern dispensaries it is more likely that the leaves only are used.
The leaves are best picked before flowering, the flowers are like mini dandelions on several stalks, growing from the main stem.
Harvest the leaves and either use them fresh, a few leaves chopped and made into a herb tea, or you can dry them for all year round use. The bitter flavour can be disguised a little by mixing with other suitable herbs, the calming Lemon balm if you grow that, or even a sprig of lavender.
Pineapple weed, Matricaria discoidea related to Chamomile, is a low growing grassland plant with feathery leaves and yellow dome shaped flowers much like the chamomile or a daisy centre, with barely visible tiny white surrounding sepals. If you crush a flower it gives off a faint scent of pineapple, hence the common name. The flavour is mild and a little pineapple like too.
These flowers can be used in teas, or sprinkled on salads or in a sandwich and promote a gentle feeling of well being and calm. In addition to the relaxant benefits, this plant can also soothe the stomach, much like Chamomile does. It has an anti-inflammatory action and may help with acid reflux and irritable bowel.
As always be careful with your identification of wild plants, and only take small amounts with the landowners permission. Leave plenty to grow back again.
Dawn Ireland
Medical Herbalist
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