Green Wizardries, Elecampane by Maxine Rogers
I got the flu the other week. I went to bed with a headache and muscle aches and woke up the next morning feeling much worse. There was a deal of fatigue too. I had to take part of the day off from work but luckily, I was not too ill to enjoy reading in bed. Alas, the time off was not to last.
You see, I had a bit of elecampane syrup already made up in the fridge along with some elderberry syrup made from my first crop of elderberries last year. I had several tablespoonfuls of each syrup over the course of the day. I also made some tea from chamomile flowers which was recommended to me by one of my friends who was raised by her Grandmother who was a wise woman from the Balkans. One of her Grandmother’s remedies for flu is chamomile tea with homey. Chamomile is very anti-inflammatory.
The next morning, I woke up, early, feeling fine and bounced out of bed and went off and did my first chores of the day. Such is the power of herbs to treat our illnesses. Elecampane is native to Europe and Western Asia but it grows very well on the Coast as it likes our acidic soils. It is a stately plant reaching six or seven feet tall in my garden and it is crowned with a bunch of large yellow flowers. Elecampane is related to the sunflower family. It’s leaves are huge and are favoured by small children who wish to dress up as faeries as the leaves make very good, huge wings.
It is the roots that make the medicine for curing lung problems. The autumn is the time to harvest the roots of a two to three-year old plant. This means digging the whole very large plant up and washing the root ball to get rid f the soil and to see what you have. Then, the roots are peeled, chopped and can be used fresh to make a tea to counter colds and flu and is even used to treat asthma and other lung complaints.
One plant gave me several pounds of roots to work with. To make a tea, I put 6 to 8 tablespoons of chopped elecampane roots into a saucepan and add one quart of cold water. The potion must be simmered on a low heat for 30 to 45 minutes. To make a stronger decoction, I set the hot pan on a mat and swaddle it in towels or a tea cozy and leave for several more hours or overnight. I can tell you it did wonders for my flu.
Another way to preserve the roots is to make a tincture. I filled a glass quart jar within a few inches of the top with the fresh herb. The plant material must be covered with vodka two or three inches above the level of the herbs and put it away in a cool dark place where it can be shaken every day and left to tincture for four to six weeks. Strain and bottle the tincture. For colds and flu, I take a couple of teaspoons full two or three times a day. It is really important to label containers at every step of the production as a bottle of tincture that cannot be identified must be thrown out.
I like to take elecampane as a syrup as it has an odd taste that I find better sweetened. To make a syrup, I chopped up a large quantity of the fresh roots and put them in a saucepan with a quart of water. I simmered the roots gently for several hours until the fluid was reduced by half. I strained the roots out, measured the decoction I had left and added half as much honey which I warmed gently until it was melted. The finishing touch was a quarter cup of dark rum to make the syrup keep better. I bottled it, labelled the bottle and put it in the fridge.
I have a lot of fresh roots right now so I cut some of the roots up into short lengths and put them on a cool setting in the dehydrator. The dry roots can be used later to make tea, syrup or tincture but fresh is best when making tinctures. The early autumn is a good time to harvest elecampane roots. I have several plants growing in my garden that will produce seed which I will be happy to give to anyone interested in growing this herb either as medicine or just to add interest to the back of the border.
Herbal medicines made at home out of plants grown locally are inexpensive for us to make and so much less energy intensive and less polluting than commercial pharmaceuticals.
