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Plantago

By Andrea HughesPublished: 21 May, 2010

A beautiful Sussex morning up on the south downs, I took the opportunity to gather some of the extremely abundant and lush ribwort plantain or Plantago lanceolata.

An extremely useful herb, plantago can be mixed with elderflowers, eyebright and chamomile to make a tasty and effective hayfever tea.  Here it’s action is anti- histamine and anti- allergy.

While out, my 8 year old son walked into a patch of nettles, he first tried a dock leaf which didn’t really help that much, so I pointed out some plantain, this worked an absoloute treat. Just rub the fresh leaf over the area that has been stung and repeat as needed.. fantastic!

I am also going to make a plantago cream with beeswax and coca butter to use for bites and stings.

Plantain is a great wound healer and can also be used externally for eczema.
I noticed an abundance of red clover growing nearby, the two herbs together would make a lovely healing eczema cream, maybe add some chickweed to help with the itch.

This might be a good cream to make on the next herbal medicine workshop!

Plantago in herbal medicine

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  • Andrea Hughes

    Western Medical Herbalist with a clinic in Worthing, West Sussex

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