Its good to know what is on your property that is good and bad.Momma J wrote: ↑October 5th, 2022, 6:33 am Thank you for this thread. I personally am identifying various trees, plants-weeds on my country land. I am then reading all I can find on each plant. It is surprising to see all of the health benefits that are around me. Sap, seeds, leaves, bark, roots... It is all valuable. Now I just need to learn what they are best used for and how to extract/use each.
I am buying up books and downloading all the info that I can get my hands on. Obviously pharmaceutical companies copied many of the medicinal properties in plants and put them in pill form. Much easier than harvesting your own, but I prefer natural remedies as they are often less stressful on your system.
Big pharma pushes campaigns to tell us NOT TO USE plants for medicinal purposes because it is dangerous. (It could be if used incorrectly) But, mainly they do not want people to find easy solutions and not be in need of their products.
I know quite a few plants so when I saw a plant with purple flowers and a yellow stamen pop up in my yard I was worried. I have seen deadly nightshade before by water and it has the purple and yellow together. I didn't over worry because it wasn't near water. It produced some red berries, so I decided it was time to look it up and it was in fact bittersweet nightshade. Still can be deadly. We pulled out right then to keep the kids and animals safe.
Some of my favorites that are easy to find in Utah/Idaho: Mullen: respiratory, Yarrow: plague, Gum weed: topical pain relief, Mallow: vegetable rennet, Burdock: itch relief.