Sometimes the things that scare us are their hidden power, their potency, or their incessant demand for such accuracy and understanding so they be used wisely and do no harm.
Our first Community Comment Challenge in quite a while is Halloween focused - a PURRR-fect time for garden witches and herbal wizards everywhere to tell us about THE HERBS THAT SCARE YOU.
- Is there ever a role for herbs that "harm" or hasten us through the veil of death?
- If you've ever tossed herbs into the pot in the darkest nights of the year when the veil is the thinnest, what herbs were they?
- What is the herb that you're most reluctant to use, or take, because its power frightens you?
- Have you ever travelled to the other realms using a herb as guide and transport?
Please make sure:
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- you share a photo if you can
- your comment is at least 50 words long - make it worth it
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Herbal Hive may award up to 10 Hive, sometimes less, depending on our wallet and how many people join in.
So, let's hear about the Herbs That Scare You!
@riverflows @trucklife-family @owasco @vincentnijman @minismallholding @kenistyles @anggreklestari @urchice @kingobonnaya @fermentedphil @yangyanje @annafenix @carmary @artemislives
Good morning, thank you for this valuable invitation. 🤗
I have always believed in the healing power of herbs, but I am careful about their excessive consumption because I think that all excesses are dangerous. Since I was a child I was attracted to a plant called Mimosa Púdica or sleepyhead because of what happened when I touched its leaves. Then they recommended it to me for the bath because it was relaxing, and in tea, for insomnia, but recently I read the dangerous side of its excessive consumption since its effect could be highly toxic to the point of causing dependence, hyperactivity, hallucinations, and other disorders. 🌷
I would like to invite my friends @tere.alv and @chacald.dcymt.
The Sources of Information and Images are:
Oh yes - my daughter LOVED stroking a mimosa when she was little and watching its leaves react. My thoughts, however, went straight to the mimosa cocktail and why it is named the way it is - made me suddenly wonder if it's a play on the idea of something addictive that can cause hallucinations.
The flowers are so pretty and delicate!
In Asia many poor people scavenge and eat mimosa when there is little else about... sort of a last resort. They put it in soups and curries, often with fish. Troubling to think about the long term health consequences, and how it's often the poorer people who are most at risk.
In Indonesia there is one herbal plant, actually this is a very poisonous plant species, when in contact with the sap it can cause the skin to become itchy and a rash to appear on the skin. This plant is called rodent tuber. Rodent taro has the scientific name Typhonium flagelliforme. Rodent taro leaves have long been used for cancer treatment, it needs special handling to process rat taro leaves into anti-cancer herbs. Even when using rat taro leaves for cancer treatment, sufferers will usually experience mild diarrhea for several days.So not all cancer patients can use the rodent tuber plant as a medicine, this is about whether or not an herb is suitable for treatment for some people. I remember a few years ago I had a friend who was suffering from breast cancer and he was successful with rat taro leaves to treat his cancer. He said that he soaked the rat taro leaves for up to 24 hours in clean water, then my friend mashed the rat taro leaves, after that he took the mashed rat taro leaf extract. I did not ask the dose that my friend used, because the most important thing was that he had recovered from his cancer. But there are also those who do not succeed in using rat taro to treat cancer.
Gosh that's amazing your friend recovered! There must be a lot of anti cancer plants we don't know about. I can see why it's a scary plant if it blisters the skin! In the UK there's a plant called giant hogweed which can do this if touched...(image via Google search)
Though I don't have a picture of it, mine's Damiana. A potent aphrodisiac that always gets me into trouble!
I love it infused in vodka and honey... Definitely a sexy drink!
Ill definitely whip some up before the missus gets back from America!
Ok - I'm going first. I'm both enthralled and deeply frightened of the power of the magnificent Bella Donna Lily. Amaryllis Bella Donna
It's known as a powerful anti-malarial agent. And, as someone living in the tropics, I've SEEN an 11 year old girl dead in only 22 hours from malaria. Would I ever think to USE it? I shudder to think. It is known also as the Lady of Death, the stopper of hearts and a potent poison.
Like so many of the GORGEOUS herbs, is she not stunning?? Gracious, seductive, deadly.
Oh these grow everywhere here! I did not know they are a medicine. Scary, yes, beautiful, yes. It is things like this that makes our modern world so poor in terms of lost knowledge regarding natural medicine. If I am not mistaken this flower is native to the Cape region. So much of the fynbos plants have been used for centuries by the locals, but with deforestation and epistemicide (killing of local knowledge) all this knowledge is getting lost. It is really sad to see. Sorry for the long winded ramblings!
It's interesting that deer instinctively know NOT to eat Bella Donna - as if they have evolved with embodied knowledge. I think we humans USED to be like that.
Long winded ramblings? that's exactly what we LOVE to see in a comment challenge!
That is so true right? I am only thinking about how modern humans have evolved to like bitter things, think double espresso black coffee, bitter 90% chocolate, and so on. Normally, as I understand it, bitter things are symbols of poison and we evolved to dislike bitter food. I may have it totally wrong, but it is something I have seen in my own exploration of food. Various plants/greens are bitter, but I love them in a salad.
Interestingly, another green, the herb that scares me, is the cape sorrel (Oxalis pes-caprae (or African wood-sorrel)) because of how delicious it is. It is used in various dishes in traditional South African foods like "waterblommetjie bredie" (water flower stew). But due to the high oxalic acid content, I am always worried about eating too much. It is probably not that dangerous.
Thanks for chiming in so quickly, @fermentedphil We're bringing the Herbal Hive out of her dormancy and preparing for a healthy season.
That is awesome to hear! Thanks for the awesome community. I am myself a little bit dormant in the department of herbs and gardening as I am away from my garden. But in December, I am back in my garden, planting new herbs, and doing new research on local herbal medicine!
Anything called Lady Of Death has gotta be scary!!!
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Mine is amanita muscaria!!! Although I picked a heap this season to dry, I'm still a little anxious about doing so! I'd love to as it's meant to be transformative for anxiety but last time I had magic mushrooms I ended up stroking a possum skin for eight hours thinking my heart was going to beat out of it's chest!!! And I KNOW that amanita is NOT like psilocin at all but still.... and I really want to cook and eat it because I know you can but what if I damage my liver? It's so irrational because my ancedents ate this mushroom and they didn't die from it!! Maybe amanita is just saying I'm not ready YET. HOWEVER, I did make a vodka tincture out of it in case of sciatica ... And I was meant to send it to @ligayagardener but am so bad at posting things .. I'd never run an online shop successfully 🤪🍄🍄🍄
Tagging @umirais, @traisto, @oniemango, @amygoodrich, @antnn who also might like to be added to the list/join in? Excited that the Herbal Hive is resurrected and looking forward to more comments here!!
As far as I know this type of mushroom is poisonous and certainly not to be cooked as a dish. But this mushroom can be processed as herbal medicine with certain techniques. I hope you have success with this mushroom @riverflows
Do you make herbal tinctures too, @umirais ?
no i didn't make it @artemislives
Ooooh - these remind me of primary school at Montrose Primary in Victoria - they used to grow under the pine trees at the back of the footy oval. Every mushroom season the dire warnings from the teachers about how you'd DIE if you even thought about touching one!!
Medicine in tiny amounts I'd be game to try. Eating? Not so much. One of my staff in Thailand almost died from mushroom poisoning here in Thailand and it is frightening. The liver damage is the scary part, it's true. I have a MILDLY compromised liver post-chemo and it affects everything in terms of health....
Lovely, lovely images. I'm expecting fairies to pop their heads out any moment.
🍄
ARen't they bbeautiful? There's just something about them...
You run all your Hive projects so efficiently you'd be able to run a web-store with your eyes closed! 🤣
Aw, thankyou! But I don't HAVE to run the Hive projects - no one is really paying me for it hahahah
Oooooh my sciatica!!!
Oh no now I feel bad, I'll send it next week 😭😭😭
😆 🤣
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I also read this on Facebook today - @umirais, another cancer one. But it struck me how deeply ingrained our fear of some plants is!
I asked her what she was doing as I was brought up to think that they were really toxic. So toxic that even if you got some on your fingers toxic you’d drop down dead. She said she had cancer and how they were full of antioxidants and full of lovely healing stuff. She said it was the black pips inside the berry that are the poisonous bit.
As we were chatting she was spitting all the pips out and eating the berry.
I have a brain tumour and I want to be brave and try them but there is something so deep rooted in me that says absolutely no way!!
Gotta say some of what I read on those cancer threads scares me beyond regular Halloween level scared - cos they don't understand that if you trash your liver nixing the cancer, your immune system collapses and you have little chance of surviving in the long term.
Yew berries - Yikes!!
Yeah I know right!!!