5 Medicinal Plants And Herbs You Can Find In Your Yard

hey guys this is josh here trillium wild edibles and today i want to bring you a short little video on some medicinal plants that you guys can find in your yard and in this video we're going to talk a little bit about what these plants look like and we're going to talk about some of the uses as well so without further ado let's get right into the video I know the first plant that we're looking at right now is red clover and red clover is an extremely common and popular plant you can find this growing in your lawn you can find this growing on the edges of fields as well the scientific name of red clover is trifolium pratense and it gets the name trifolium from its three leaflets that it has with this very characteristic white tinge here now this plant is related to clover and there are several hundred species of clover within the United States and all around the world so what exactly are some of the uses of red clover well red clover has a lot of estrogenic compounds within it and a lot of isoflavone and these isoflavones have shown cancer preventive activities but they also show antioxidant activities as well this plan is generally used inside of menopausal treatments it's also used as a blood purifier because of its antioxidant activity so this is a really good plant to know if you're wanting to clean some of your blood now some of the other interesting things about this plant as it also contains phytoestrogens which has been used in hormone replacement therapy some other very common uses of this plant though that might be more applicable for your average home user or average home herbalist is this plant can be used along with white clover to help stimulate the blood flow and to help stimulate the immune system response in common cold herbal treatments so if you got like your common cold this is a good plant to add with white clover and several other plants as well to help fight that infection or to help fight that cold alright now the next plant that we're going to be talking about today is wild lettuce wild lettuce is a very common plant that you can find growing obviously in your yard and on the sides of fields and there are a lot of different varieties of wild lettuce forgive me it's kind of windy today now because there are so many different varieties of lettuce I'm not necessarily going to be distinguishing between the different varieties because most of them can be used interchangeably this plant that we're looking at right here is actually prickly lettuce because on the margins of its leaves you can see these very fine and small prickles or little prickly edges they feel kind of rough but they're not sharp to where they cause any pain or anything so that's actually nice the leaves of wild lettuce can actually very rather greatly from having lobes to sharp teeth to prickles along the edges of the margins and some of them may not have any lobes at all like you can see on these leaves right here in front of us one interesting feature to note about wild lettuce that will help you to identify it as if you pluck one of the leaves you're going to notice it's very white milky sap coming out of the plant and the scientific name of this plant lack Tuukka actually refers to this lactating milky sap or this lactating quality that it has wild lettuce actually has a wide variety of uses from being a sedative or a nerve tonic or a good herbal comma t'v this is a really good plant to take to kind of calm yourself down before bedtime and to help yourself relax this plant can also be used for treatment of pain as well so this plan is really interesting and it also has some external uses because of the SAP you can actually take the SAP that comes from the leaves of the plant and you can rub it on your skin if you have warts or anything like that and it said to remove them because it will bind to the war and if you apply it frequently enough it will eventually pull that wart out so this is really nice that it also has some external uses as well the very next plant that we're going to talk about today is very well known for its usage on the skin in case of poison ivy rash or dermatitis in case you have like a rash from another plant that itches and burns really bad or mosquito bites and bug bites and this plant is called jewel weed and it's flower is also extremely beautiful and very unique jewel weed has very broad ovate leaves with very dull to smart you can see these teeth aren't very show PARP on the margins of the leaf now there are two different types of jewelweed there's yellow jewelweed and there's orange jewelweed both of the flowers are the exact same shape however one is obviously yellow and the other is orange you're going to notice these red spots if the wind will quit blowing the flower on me here you're going to notice these red spots or splotches with inside of the throat of the flower just like you can see on this plant right here when it comes to using jewelweed a lot of people will use the stems and the leaves of the plant and one of the interesting things about jewelweed and using it this way is the stem as you can see will form these very large bumps and nodes and what happens here is the stem of the jewelweed plant will actually fill up with water and as this happens over time it's going to form these very large bumps which fill up with water and that makes the stem very very juicy so it does work really well to get a lot of juice that has some sort of a cooling effect on poison ivy or bug bites it doesn't actually prevent or really help remove poison ivy rash though some swear it does science has not proven that yet however it is something that will help to alleviate the itching which is something that's beneficial for those who suffer from poison ivy and one of the interesting things about jewelweed is that its stem will fill up with water during the midsummer and it will form these very large bumps just like you can see right here and what this means is the stem is very full of juices a lot more so than these leaves are so these leaves can be used in conjunction with the stem to put on the skin for poison ivy rash or bug bites this plant doesn't really prevent or remove poison ivy rash like some people say some will swear that it does science hasn't really proven that yet however it does help to alleviate the itching and provide some relief so that is something to keep in mind that you can use the leaves and stem in conjunction the next plant that we're going to talk about today is lobelia inflata lobelia inflata is a very small growing or herb with very very small delicate whitish blue flowers the leaves are going to be alternate and you're going to notice these white spots or specks along the margins of the leaf like you can see on this one right here above my thumb well Billy and flauta gets its name and flauta from the inflated seedpods just like you can see here this plan is very well known as an Indian tobacco which is another one of its common names it used to be used in the 18th and 19th centuries to be smoked in place of tobacco it was also used as a sedative and as a purgative to make one vomit or to expel toxins this plant can be combined with plantain to be applied to poisonous snake bites or poisonous bug bites this plant can also be used as a sedative which is a very very strong sedative if used too much the seed is the most potent part of the plant however this plant can also be used in other with other plants to help increase the effectiveness of their action from plants of ginger to yarrow and to any other plant you're using the dissin alene this plant can be used to increase the effectiveness of whatever herbs you're taking however use extreme caution with this plant because this plant can put you into a coma if you use too much and if you use it improperly the next point that we're going to be talking about today is yellow wood sorrel there are a large variety of wood sorrel species inside of the United States but the two most common you're probably going to be seeing or the yellow wood sorrel of which there are at least a dozen different varieties and then purple wood sorrel purple wood sorrel is very very large it's much larger than yellow wood sorrel and like its name implies it'll have a purple flower instead of a yellow one wood sorrel is an oxalis species because it contains oxalic acid and one thing to note about oxalic acid even though it's inside of spinach and rhubarb is that it can inhibit the absorption of calcium if you take too much however medicinally this plant used to be used because of its vitamin C content to help treat scurvy it can also be used in teas added with other things to not only add a nice lemony flavor but to help calm the throat if you have a sore throat its leaves used to be chewed for this purpose fresh and its leaves have a very citrus like flavor this plant was extremely important to early colonists coming over because of the lack of vitamin C that was within their diet and there are a lot of plants inside the new world that allowed them to prevent their scurvy and to treat their scurvy which happens from a lack of vitamin C one of the last plants that we're going to be talking about today is common plantain and there are two different species of plantain the broad leaf common plantain which is this one right here and then you have the narrow leaf plantain which is this guy right here these can both be used interchangeably in these plants are a plant hago species which a commercially domestic source of psyllium comes from these seeds and another plant augo species as well the seeds of any plant hago species are very good for lowering cholesterol and they can all be used in the same ways because this plan is very high in usage it makes a very good expectorant inside of teas and tinctures it also makes a fairly good diuretic this plan is astringent and can be poultice on on top of skin infections cuts and bruises this plan is very well known for drawing out infections it's also very good and well known for cooling it provides a very good cooling sensation and this can be combined with jewelweed to provide some comfort for those who are suffering from sunburn or poison ivy rash broadleaf plantain is very distinct it has these very large ovate leaves with parallel veins that run from the petiole of the leaf all the way to the tip of the leaf the margins are going to be smooth and it will grow in a basal rosette pattern meaning its leaves will grow in a circle around the taproot of the plant narrow leaf plantain has very long grass like leaves as we can see here and again with the same parallel veining structure from the petiole to the very tip of the leaf and very smooth margins it also will grow in a sort of a rosette pattern around the taproot of its plant another interesting thing that you can do with plantain is you can dig up a whole lot of it root and all because the entire plant can be used and you can actually place it inside of ORN bathwater to provide yourself comfort from sore muscles because this plant is very very good at being an anti-inflammatory as well so this plant has a lot of interesting uses so there's just a few of the medicinal plants that can be found inside of one's yard there are a whole lot more plants that are medicinal and even edible that you guys can find in your yard and get to using I thank you guys for watching this video I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you learned just a little bit of something if you want to learn more about edible or medicinal plants please make sure to subscribe

Channel: Trillium: Wild Edibles

Views: 832,625

Keywords: 5 medicinal plants and herbs you can find in your yard, medicinal plants you can find in your yard, medicinal plants in your yard, medicinal herbs in your yard, 5 medicinal herbs in your yard, wild medicinal plants and their uses, wild medicinal herbs, wild medicinal plants, medicinal herbs in the garden, herbal medicine, gardening, medicinal plants and herbs, Trillium: Wild Edibles, list video, Jewel Weed, Red Clover, Plantain, Lobelia Inflata, Wood Sorrel, Wild Lettuce

Id: nPQi-HaNMeE

Length: 11min 41sec (701 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 28 2017