When You Go in the Woods with an Herbalist

One of the highlights of our Master Herbalist Certification Seminar is the day we spend out on an herb walk. All the students seem to be intrigued with everything growing. Each person has a different experience with the herbs and it is so fun to learn from each other. We all walk with our eyes on the ground looking to find and identify
the herbs we have learned so much about. The expertise of David Christopher and his knowledge of the application of each of the herbs was just incredible. 

Some of the herbs we were able to learn about this year were:

Black Walnut: The leaves are compound and the stems are hollow.

Yellow Clover: crush the flowers and they smell like vanilla. Blood thinner medication is made from a derivative of this plant.

Pine: The needles are a source of testosterone.

Cleavers: Good for the Lymphatic system. It will stick like velcro to your clothes. David had fun throwing it at
us. 

Teasel: Visually this plant is very prickly and David compares that to someone who might be in a lot of pain which this plant can be very helpful for. 

Malva: Usefulness of this plant is the same as marshmallow root. Dr. Christopher taught that this plant was good for gangrene and he told of many people who had used it to heal from gangrene. 

Hounds tongue: The flowers of this plant smell like theater
popcorn. 

Wild Lettuce: You can use the white milky sap inside the stem to remove warts. 

Yarrow: to stop bleeding and to help a
fever.

Plantain: for bug bites and it also helps heal wounds.

Oak: You can chew on the small twigs to clean the teeth.

Red Clover: Used by Dr. Christopher and the Hoxey clinic in formulas to clean the blood.

Dandelion: David talks about how his family would go out into
the yard and eat the dandelion flowers and eventually they didn’t have any more dandelions so they had to eat the neighbors’ dandelions. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our herb walk with David Christopher at the Master Herbalist Certification Seminar this year and are looking forward to next year. We hope to see many of you attend the
seminar in June.  It is the highlight of our whole year. 

Jo Francks is a Master Herbalist working at the School of Natural Healing