The All-Healing Miracle Plant
By Alex Lapierre
On the farm in midsummer, while taking a stroll through the pastures with the sheep that are grazing I keep an eye on what plants they eat. The sheep eat many varieties of grasses, they sometimes browse the fir needles, and they even munch on thistles and stinging nettle. But then I see these pretty little purple wild flowers on the edge of the pasture. To me, they certainly look tasty, but the sheep completely ignore them. I wonder what secrets lay inside this conspicuous little plant.
This plant is heal-all, or as I like to call it, the miracle plant. I first learned of heal-all while taking a different walk on a different day with my father and my brother, who at the time was studying dendrology. He identified these little flowers, which I see all over the farm, as heal-all. My brother went on to tell us how this plant is supposed to have healing properties, and how it is a natural remedy for many ailments. I wanted to learn exactly what healing properties heal-all has, and if it truly is, as its name implies, a plant that can heal everything.
Heal-all, Prunella vulgaris, is an angiosperm (flowering plant) in the family Lamiaceae, the mint family. This plant is also known commonly as selfheal, all-heal, hook-heal, woundwort, slough-heal, heart of the Earth, prunella, brunella, carpenter-weed, blue curls, kleine braunelle, niityhumala, glowienka pospolita, xia ku cao… the list goes on. This can be attributed to its amazingly widespread distribution. Heal-all is found in temperate climates throughout Europe, Asia,Japan, andNorth America. It often grows in grassland, woodland edges, and on waste ground, in basic or neutral soils. Heal-all thrives in any damp soil, whether it is with full sun or under shade. Heal-all grows up to two feet tall, with creeping, tough, reddish, square stems and one-inch long, serrated, lance-shaped leaves growing from short stalks in opposite pairs. The flowers of heal-all are tubular and two-lipped, with the top lip purple and the bottom lip white.
Heal-all is a perennial plant, flowering mostly from June to August. During midsummer, I see groups of nice purple flowers separating bright green pasture from dark shadowy woods. Last summer, the flowers, and me, were all that stood between the grazing sheep and the sneaky black bear. As I was riding my trail bike beside the sheep in the pasture, I noticed some heal-all at the pasture’s edge, so I got off the bike to examine a couple plants. When I stood up and turned around, the fat black bear was standing just on the other side of the flower patch, watching me curiously. So I slowly got back on the bike and, armed with a handful of heal-all, yelled at it. The bear took off like a shot. I like to think that the plant I was holding in my hand performed yet another miracle, but that is probably stretching it. Although it will surprise you when you learn just what this plant is capable of.
Heal-all is edible and medicinal. It can be used in many things including salads, soups, tea, and eyewash. Heal-all has many active components. The most useful ones are betulinic-acid, D-camphor, delphinidin, hyperoside, manganese, oleanolic-acid, rosmarinic-acid, rutin, ursolic-acid, and tannins. The active components of heal-all give it antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, antiseptic, astringent, antioxidant, hypotensive, and diuretic properties. Because of these properties, heal-all has been a natural remedy for almost every ailment known to man. The plant can be used in medicinal tea for treating fevers, diarrhea, sore throat, internal bleeding, and liver and heart weaknesses. Its antibacterial action inhibits the growth of Pseudomonas, Escherichia coli, and Mycobacterium tuberculi. Research into some of the miracles that heal-all can perform has shown that some extracts from heal-all reduce vascular inflammation and have anti-tumor effects; phenols in heal-all were shown to contribute to antioxidant activity for inhibition of tumor growth. Other extracts have been shown to have antifungal activities against a variety of plant pathogens. These extracts could be used as natural fungicides for controlling some plant diseases. Furthermore, ethanolic extract from heal-all could be useful for treating drug-induced cognitive impairments, such as memory loss. Heal-all even shows potential for treating major maladies like cancer, AIDS, and diabetes. This plant undoubtedly has incredible healing capabilities. When I think of heal-all tea, it seems to me more like magic potion than just another herbal tea. You can pretend there is a magical, all-healing aura around your cup.
Heal-all has been used for centuries as an alternative medicine on almost every continent; it was and still is a well-known natural remedy. It was once proclaimed to be a holy herb sent by God to cure all ailments of man and beast. Because of this, it was also once believed that witches would plant this holy herb in their witches’ garden as a disguise. One Native American tribe was known to drink tea made from heal-all roots in pre-hunting ceremonies in order to increase the powers of observation.
Today, heal-all is still used in tea, iced tea, and it is used in some skin creams. There are no important commercial uses for heal-all, and it is not a major crop. Heal-all can be planted in the garden; like all mints, you only need to plant it once and it will come up year after year. But wild heal-all is very abundant, and collecting it is easy. During midsummer, when it is in bloom, my family goes on excursions about the farm to collect heal-all. We pick the whole shoot, stem and everything, and store it in a tin container to let it dry for later use, although you can eat the whole shoot raw. The plant, as you might have guessed, tastes fairly sweet. Mostly, we make herbal tea from heal-all. All you do is toss a handful of dried leaves and flowers into a pot of boiling water and let it steep. Dried heal-all has been an important shelf item for many years in my household. When in doubt, we have some heal-all tea.
Heal-all, with all its beauty and healing powers, surely is a gift from Mother Nature. It is a plant to be cherished, not abused like so many other plants are for their active components and properties. Heal-all has not been majorly cultivated by people so far, though it has certainly been used for many centuries all over the world. I am thankful it is not sold in heaps in the local grocery store. Heal-all is still the little wild herb it has been since it first appeared on this Earth, and on a nice midsummer’s day, you can still venture out into your backyard or into the countryside to collect it. You can make some magical heal-all tea, and smell and taste the land where it came from. Through heal-all, you can make a connection to the wild, a connection that will remind you of the power contained within plants, and the power of the forests, and ultimately the power of the Earth.
References
1. Feng L, Jia X, Zhu M, Chen Y, Shi F. Antioxidant activities of total phenols of prunella vulgaris L. in vitro and in tumor-bearing mice. Molecules 2010 DEC;15(12):9145-56.
2. Hwang SM, Lee YJ, Yoon JJ, Lee SM, Kim JS, Kang DG, Lee HS. Prunella vulgaris suppresses HG-induced vascular inflammation via Nrf2/HO-1/eNOS activation. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 2012 JAN;13(1):1258-68.
3. Park SJ, Kim DH, Lee IK, Jung WY, Park DH, Kim JM, Lee KR, Lee K, Shin CY, Cheong JH, et al. The ameliorating effect of the extract of the flower of prunella vulgaris var. lilacina on drug-induced memory impairments in mice. Food and Chemical Toxicology 2010 JUN;48(6):1671-6.
4. Wu Xiong-Zhi, Zhang Shuang-Xia, Zhu Cong, Chen Dan. Effects of sulfated polysaccharide extracted from prunella vulgaris on endothelial cells. Journal of Medicinal Plants Research 2011 SEP 9;5(17):4218-23.
5. Yoon M-, Choi GJ, Choi YH,JangKS, Park MS, Cha B, Kim J-. Effect of polyacetylenic acids from prunella vulgaris on various plant pathogens. Lett Appl Microbiol 2010 NOV;51(5):511-7.
6. http://www.altnature.com/gallery/healall.htm
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunella_vulgaris
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