Valerian/ Læge-Baldrian/ Baldrian

Valeriana officinalis


Valerian (Valeriana officinalis, Caprifoliaceae) is a perennial flowering plant, with heads of sweetly scented pink or white flowers that bloom in the summer and can reach a height of 1.5 metres (5 ft). The fruits are nuts and the root system is a rhizome with numerous root tufts. Valerian flower extracts were used as a perfume in the 16th century. The flowers are frequently visited by many fly species, especially hoverflies and consumed as food by larvae of some lepidoptera, butterflies and moths.

Valeriana means "strong against diseases". The word valens means strong or fresh. The name might refer to a Roman herbal doctor named Valerianus who used the plant as a medicine. Other names used for this plant include Garden Valerian (to distinguish it from other Valeriana species), Garden Heliotrope (although not related to heliotropium Setwall and All-heal (which is also used for plants in the genus Stachys. Red Valerian, often grown in gardens, is also sometimes referred to as "valerian", but is a different species (Centranthus ruber) from the same family and not very closely related.

The valerian is spread in Minor Asia, Caucasus, Iran, Central Asia , Sibiria, East Asia and Europe. Valerian has been introduced into North America.  In Denmark it is spread in the eastern section but not seen in West- and North Jutland. The plant is found in shadowy or lightopen places with moist till wet or flooded soil - and is often seen in meadows or along water streams.

The plant and especially the rhizome contains several active substances: an etheric oil which together with valeren acid and isovalerian acid promote the very strong scent which is typical for valerian.  The plant contains also valepotriat and several alcaloids. The content of the valerian oil varies immensely in relation to the species, the age of the pant and the harvest time.



Folk Medicine

The rhizome contains valerian oil which is tranquillizing. The plant has been used against headache, muscle cramps, irritable colon and against wounds and exemia. Valerian tincture was used against bomb chok and other nerve strains during WWI.

The Valerian drops are used as a calming and somnolent means  and is sold as an OTC medicine. Laboratory studies point out that the plant might have anticancer effects. The root works calming and cramp loosening and can be used in nervous diseases and inner cramps.

Old herbal books recommend  to drink a glass of wine with valerian drops each day in order to maintain the health of the eyes and keep a sharp sight in old age; therefore the plant was named Eye root in the old days, which was due to observations of cats who had extended pupils when they had been rolling in the herb. An unusual feature of valerian is that valerian root and leaves are a cat attractant similar to, and as safe as, catnip. Valerian contains the cat attractant actinidine.  Stories describe the Pied Piper of Hamelin using both his pipes and valerian to attract rats.

Valerian has been used as a medicinal herb since at least the time of ancient Greece and Rome. Hippocrates described its properties, and Galen later prescribed it as a remedy for insomnia. In medieval Sweden, it was sometimes placed in the wedding clothes of the groom to ward off the "envy" of the elves. In the 16th century, the reformer  P. Marpeck prescribed valerian tea for a sick woman.


John Gerard's  Herball states that his contemporaries found Valerian "excellent for those burdened and for such as be troubled with croup and other like convulsions, and also for those that are bruised with falls." He says that the dried root was valued as a medicine by the poor in the north of England and the south of Scotland, so that "no broth or pottage or physicall meats be worth anything if Setewale [Valerian] be not there".

The seventeenth century astrological botanist Nicholas Culpeper thought the plant was "under the influence of Mercury, and therefore hath a warming faculty." He recommended both herb and root, and said that "the root boiled with liquorice, raisons and anisseed is good for those troubled with cough. Also, it is of special value against the plague, the decoction thereof being drunk and the root smelled. The green herb being bruised and applied to the head taketh away pain and pricking thereof."

                                         



From wikipedia:
Although valerian is a popular herbal medicine used for treating insomnia, there is no good evidence it is effective for this purpose, and there is some concern it may be harmful. There is no good evidence that valerian is helpful in treating restless leg syndrome or anxiety. There is insufficient evidence for efficacy and safety of Valerian for anxiety disorders.

The European Medicines Agency EMA approved the claim that valerian can be used as a traditional herbal medicinal product in order to relieve mild symptoms of mental stress and to aid sleep. The EMA stated that although there is insufficient evidence from clinical studies, the effectiveness of the traditional use of valerian is considered plausible when it has been used safely for this purpose for many years.

Because the compounds in valerian produce central nervous system depression, they should not be used with other depressants, such as ethanol, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, opiates, kava, or antihistamine drugs. Moreover, non-pregnant adult human hepatotoxicity has been associated with short-term use (i.e., a few days to several months) of herbal preparations containing valerian and scutellaria (commonly called skullcap). Withdrawal after long-term use in a male has also been associated with benzodiazepine-like withdrawal symptoms, resulting in cardiac complications and delirium.

The very limited animal and human data do not allow a conclusion as to the safety of valerian during pregnancy. Moreover, as a natural, unregulated product, the concentration, contents, and presence of contaminants in valerian preparations cannot be easily determined. Because of this uncertainty and the potential for cytotoxicity in the fetus and hepatotoxicity in the mother, the product should be avoided during pregnancy.


Source: Anemette Olesen Klosterurter, 2001, wikipedia 2017 
images: wikipedia

 

 

Valerian: Mechanism of action  (read information on wikipedia )

Danish information:
 Brøndegaard, Etnobotanik, Folk og flora bd. 4
Læge Baldrian/ Valeriana officinalis

Navne: Læge-baldrian, velandsurt (1546-1870) var vel opstået med allusion til sagnfiguren Vølund Smed; "katteurt" (1533-1789); "katterod" (1600t.) og "katteglæde" (1820), øjenrod (1648-1821), venderod/ vendelrod (1700t) den stærkt lugtende rod værnede mod hekseri, Danmarksgræs (1700t) plantens stængel med blomsterkvaster blev brugt af børn som slagvåben.

Saft af baldrian og pileblade blev brugt til salve på hævet strube, (begyndelsen af 1400t.)
Christiern Pedersen (1533): saft indgives mod epilepsi; vin- eller ølafkog af rødder var urindrivende, dekokt med fennikel og opiumvalmuefrø i vin eller øl drikkes mod lændesmerter.
Henrik Smid (1546): mellem de to fruedage 15/3 - 15/8 blev rødderne taget op og skyggetørret, den pulveriserede rod drukket med vin var urindrivende og hjalp mod gift og pest. Den friske urt knust og lagt på hoved stiller hovedpine. Øjne badet med vinafkog af rod og blomster bliver klare.
Simon Paulli 1648: den knuste rod indtaget med vin anbefales mod svagsynethed , heraf tilberedes også et øjenbadevand der blev solgt på apoteker. Nogle forfattere hævdede at planten eller en klud dyppet i dens saft kunne trække jern ud af hug- og stiksår.

Roden blev anført i farmakopeen in 1772. Den styrker senerne, er sveddrivende, fordeler svulster, lægges knust på sår og tørret i pose mod svage øjne. Roden har krampestillende, nervestyrkende, sved- og urindrivende og opløsende egenskaber, den modvirker hysteri og forrådnelse og anvendes mod indvoldsorm.  Den pulveriserede rod indgives for epilepsi. Mod hovedsmerter gnides panden med baldrianblade og krusemynte. Klog kone på Rømø gav den tørre, knuste rod som middel mod kvinders søvnløshed - eller de tørrede blade under hovedpuden. En te af bladene mod nervøsitet.
Roden indgik i en beskyttende pest-akvavit og et råd mod bl.a. feber og hjælper mod hudløshed. Indgik i øjenbadevand og "Herr Niels' dråber" = urteudtræk i brændevin

Husdyr

Baldrianrod er komponent i råd for oksens ondartede lungesyge og et røgemiddel mod kvægpest. Afkræftede kreaturer gnides med baldrian og tjære, "tjærespån og vendelrod - giver din ko god helsebod." Efter kælving skulle koen have baldrian. Roden af "katteurt" indgik i middel for hestens sygdomme. Får fik øldekokt af baldrian og stinkende kamille. Rod af baldrian, løvstikke og alant blev givet til syge svin. Baldrianrod blev brugt mod hundesyge. .  




Overtro
Baldrian eller St. Buldrian nævner ni andre helgener i flere signeråd fx "hil  dig San wenis urt = (Velands?) du er kommet af Jesu blod" (1692 og 1793) i lægeråd for at fremmane tyve , eller mod gæssenes forhekselse.  Hvis køerne omkring Mortensdag 11/11 fik baldrian i foderet, kunne de ikke forhekses. Rod af baldrian og mesterrod spises med kerner af pæon og nyserod mod trolddom.

"Mand og kone at forene som altid kives og trættes, giv dem begge et krus Valeriana, så bliver de straks gode venner."


Danish source: Brøndegaard, Dansk Etnobotanik, Folk og flora bd. 4: Læge Baldrian. 
images: grethe bachmann and wikipedia

Dyer's Woad/ Farvevajd

Isatis tinctoria

Flora and Fauna

seeds from woad (wikipedia)

Woad/Farve-vajd (Isatis tinctoria) is a biennial plant of the cruciferous family . It grows wild in beach banks in the southeastern parts of Denmark. It was earlier cultivated and from here it went feral in nature. It is commonly called Farvevajd (Dyer's Woad) and is occasionally known as Asp of Jerusalem.

Woad is also the name of a blue dye produced from the leaves of the plant.

Woad is found along the coasts of the Baltic, in Central and Eastern Europe and in Central Asia.  In Denmark it was long known in Bornholm but the spread has expanded since 1960 and also includes the eastern coast of Sjælland (Zealand) and the coast of Amager, with some occurence at the coast of Storebælt.


Woad in Denmark:

Woad in the first year. (wikipedia)

Woad/ Farvevajd was used for dyeing fabrics blue in the North. The cultivation of woad stopped in Denmark ab. 1800 due to the import of indigo. Woad contains a lightfast and colourfast dye.

In the first year the woad forms a 20 cm high rosette of green leaves - if a leaf is crushed with the fingers they turn blue. The leaves from the first year are used for the dye  The colour is extracted by letting the leaves ferment in urin for ab. 5 days. In the second year the plant puts an inflorescence with yellow flowers in June, then puts seeds and wither. Today the colour from both woad and indigo are virtually outcompeted by the anilin colours.

The name vajd (1672) (weid) comes from old German weit, common German waida. It is possibly familiar to Latin vitum = glass. It was in 1670 also called glass herb, maybe because of the old name glastum.

The seeds of farvevajd was found in a house from before Roman Iron Age (400 BC)  in Ginnerup in Thy (Jutland); the plant was cultivated in Jutland in Roman Iron Age (1-200 AC). At that time no other lightfast and colourfast dye was known, until indigo ab. 1600 became a commodity in Europe. In 1792 woad plantations are mentioned at Copenhagen, outside Nørreport, where Holmblad and Son (dyers at the royal textile factory) cultivated both woad and krap (madder).

The woad was distinguished after sowing seasons, either winter- or summer woad . The leaves were cut when they were yellow headed, this could be done twice or three times during summer. After being washed the leaves were laid out to wither, and then  they were crushed with a stone on special mills or in an oblong curved trough. From the lot were formed little lumps, which after being air-dried were sold as "vejd" or "pastel"  and were used for dyeing without or with indigo. i

The plant could also dye a yellow-brown colour, and an oil could be pressed from the seeds. In ab. 1805 the woad-cultivation in Denmark had almost stopped as a result from the import of indigo. Still in 1900 woad was used for dyeing in Denmark, but the material was imported from France. In France and Germany the plant is still used for cultivation.   

In an old folk song about the knight Ramund is referred to blue yarn, which means clothes dyed by woad.

The main biotope of woad is a stony, gravelled soil along the coasts, often where is brought extra nutrients from rottening seaweed, but the plant is seldom found at the edge of roads, ruderates etc. It is possibly still cultivated as a decorative plant. It is not certain if the plant originally was spread feral from cultivation, or if the appearance at the Baltic coast is a Late Glacial relict. It is often found at the coasts of Bornholm and Sjælland, esp. East Sjælland (Zealand), where it is rare, but might be frequent in local places. It is undoubtedly under spread. In the other Danish districts is woad still very rare.


European History of Woad (from wikipedia)

Dyer's Woad/ Farvevajd  (wikipedia)

Woad was long important as a source of blue dye, it has been cultivated throughout Europe, especially in Western and southern Europe since ancient times. In medieval times there were important woad growing regions in England, Germany and France, and towns such as Toulouse became prosperous on the woad trade. Woad was eventually replaced by the stronger indigo and then by synthetic indigoes.

The first archaeological finds of woad seeds date to the Neolithic and have been found in the French cave of l'Audoste, Bouches-du Rhone, France.  Named Färberwaid (Isatis tinctoria L.) or German Indigo, of the plant family (Brassicaceae), in the Iron Age settlement of the Heuneburg, Germany, impressions of the seeds have been found on pottery. The Hallstatt burials of Hochdorf and Hohmichele contained textiles dyed with Färberwaid (woad dye).

Historians Melo and Rondão write that woad was known "as far back as the time of the ancient Egyptians, who used it to dye the cloth wrappings applied for the mummies."  One of the early dyes discovered by the ancient Egyptians was "blue woad (Isatis tinctoria)." Lucas writes, "What has been assumed to have been Indian Indigo on ancient Egyptian fabrics may have been woad." Hall states that the ancient Egyptians created their blue dye "by using indigotin, otherwise known as woad." Julius Caesar tells us (in de Bello Gallico) that the Britanni used to colour their bodies blue with vitrum, a word that roughly translates to "glass". Many have assumed that vitrum refers to woad, but other modern authors regard this as a misconception, possibly repeated for political reasons; Caesar may also have described some form of copper- or iron-based pigment. The northern inhabitants of Britain came to be known as picts (Picti), which means "painted ones" in Latin, and may have been due to these accounts of them painting or tattooing their bodies.

Woad was one of the three staples of the European dyeing industry, along with weld (yellow) and madder (red).  Chaucer mentions their use by the dyer ("litestere") in his poem The Former Age, among other cultural inventions that were previously absent

No mader, welde, or wood no litestere.

Ne knew; the flees was of his former hewe

Hunt of the Unicorn tapestry (wikipedia)

The three can be seen together in tapestries such as the Hunt of the Unicorn (1495–1505), though typically it is the dark blue of the woad that has lasted best The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestry, dyed with weld (yellow), madder (red) and woad (blue). 

Jean de Bernuy's house in Toulouse.

In Viking Age levels at archaeological digs at York, a dye shop with remains of both woad and madder  dating from the 10th century has been excavated. In medieval times, centres of woad cultivation lay in Lincolnshire and Somerset in England, Jülich and Erfurt area in Thuringia in Germany, Piedmont and Tuscany in Italy, and Gascogne, Normandy, the Somme Basin from Amiens to Saint Quentin, Britany and above all Languedoc in France. This last region, in the triangle created by Toulouse, Albi, and Carcassonne, was for a long time the most productive of woad, or "pastel" as it was known there, one writer commenting that "woad... hath made that country the happiest and richest in Europe." The prosperous woad merchants of Toulouse displayed their affluence in splendid mansions, many of which are still standing. One merchant, Jean de Bernuy, a Spanish Jew who had fled the inquisition, was credit-worthy enough to be the main guarantor of the ransomed King Francis I after his capture at the Battle of Pavia by Charles V of Spain. Much of the woad produced here was used for the cloth industry in southern France, but it was also exported via Bayonne, Narbonne and Bordeaux to Flanders, the Low Countries, Italy, and above all Britain and Spain.

A major market for woad was at Görlitz in Silesia. The citizens of the five Thuringian Färberwaid (dye woad) towns of Erfurt, Gotha, Tennstedt, Arnstadt and Langensalza had their own charters. In Erfurt, the woad-traders gave the funds to found the University of Erfurt.. Traditional fabric is still printed with woad in Thuringia, Saxony and Lusatia today: it is known as Blaudruck (literally, "blue print(ing)").

woad mill in Thuringia (wikipedia)

Other use: 
Medieval uses of the dye were not limited to textiles. For example, the illustrator of the Lindisfarne Gospels used a woad-based pigment for blue paint. A method for producing indigo dye from woad is described in the book The History of Woad and the Medieval Woad Vat (1998) In Germany, there are attempts to use woad to protect wood against decay without dangerous chemicals. Production is also increasing again in the UK for use in inks, particularly for inkjet printers, and dyes, as woad is biodegradable and safe in the environment, unlike many synthetic inks. The plant's presence has its problems, however, since Isatis tinctoria is viewed as an invasive species in parts of the United States.

Indigowoad Root  is a traditional Chinese medicine herb that comes from the roots of woad.







Source. Brøndegaard, folk og flora 2, Danmarks natur, Felthåndbogen, wikipedia. 
photo: borrowed from wikipedia.

Sainfoin /Esparsette

Onobrychis viciifolia

Høvblege, Møn , at calcareous soil.

Sainfoin is a very attractive wild flower with pinnate leaves and dense spikes of pretty pink flowers with darker veins. Onobrychis means "devoured by donkeys" from Ancient Greek ónos (donkey) and brýkein ("to eat greedily"), referring to sainfoin's good properties as a forage plant for large mammalian herbivores. Sainfoin is derived from Old French sain foin = healthy hay.

In northern European languages that have been less influenced by French the plants' name usually derives from esparceto, the Provencal term for the similar-looking and closely related sweetvetches (Hedysarum). Examples: Danish esparsette, Dutch esparcette, German sparsette, Russian espartset (Эспарцет) and Swedish esparsett.

Sainfoins are Eurasian perennial herbs of the legume family. About 150 species of sainfoins are presently known. The flora Europaea lists 23 species of Onobrychis; the main centre of diversity extends from Central Asia to Iran. Onobrychis viciifolia is naturalized throughout many countries in Europe and North american grasslands on calcareous soils. Sanfoins are mostly subtropical plants, but their range extends throughout Europe as far north as southern Sweden.These plants grow on grassland, agricultural land and wasteland.

These highly nutritious plants were an important forage for heavy working horses in agriculture, and are still an excellent source of nectar for honey production as well as pollen for bee food. Onobrychis species are used as food plants by the caterpillars of some Lepidoptera species.


Høvblege, Møn, a hillside with lots and lots of various flowers.

Sainfoin was probably from the middle of the 1700s cultivated in Denmark but it never had a large distribution. It was said that sainfoin when used as a fodder for the cattle increased the milk yield and made oxen fat, but horses must have it mixed with other fodder "or else they will grow too fat". It was tested as a fodder in several places with unsatisfying results - but then it was cultivated as an ornamental plant. Not until 1875 the sainfoin became popular and considered a good fodder for cattle in general, since it had a larger nutritional value than clover and lucerne. The milk gets bluish if the cows eat sainfoin.

The birth of Jesus in a humble stable has given ample opportunity for several legends. While the tired parents slept, Jesus was placed in a manger filled with sainfoin. When they awoke they were astonished to find that the dry hay had blossomed, and the baby was surrounded by its beautiful red flowers. Ever since sainfoin has been known as Holy Hay.

In George Orwell's "Coming Up for Air", travelling salesman George Bowling regularly reminisces about the smell of sainfoin in his father's seed shop in Lower Binfield.

photo ⓒ Høvblege, Møn June 2007: grethe bachmannn.