When used correctly, plant medicine can be super effective for those bumps in the road that seem to come with any proper adventure! Fortunately for us, there are a number of super common weeds here on the Front Range of Colorado and throughout the US that make up an ever present summer first aid kit.

Mints have a tendency towards stirring up the mucous membranes (that’s all those pink shiny places inside the body that we try not to think about).

So while they definitely affect the whole body, they have an especial affinity for a few specific areas.

Parrots beak. Lousewort. Elephantella.

With common names like these, it’s hard not to be interested in this plant.

Cabin fever. Climbing the walls. Winter Blues.

If you live in a northern climate like New England, you probably know the feeling. This is where Alteratives come in, the ultimate spring cleaners.

Like so many fragrant herbs, spicebush is a carminative. Carminative comes from the Latin carminare, meaning ‘makes you fart’. Okay, so not really. But it’s actual translation comes to something along the lines of ‘remove impurities’, so in essentials it comes to the same thing.

When you see ‘gogue’ at the end of a word, think Go! Go! Go! It’s like a cheering squad for whatever body system it’s associated with.

Alien space pod. Harbinger of spring. Stinky. Miraculous.

All across the Eastern US, people are feeling the stirrings of spring.  Sun on our faces. Birds singing merrily. And the pungent skunk cabbage, giving us a sense of hope for the new season, and eliciting the common, “Is that a skunk?” argument.