Another Sunday, suggested reading - mullein

For some of you this may be review, but I think it's time that we bring mullein into the conversation.

I could have sworn I had a post at the other blog about mullein that I was going to transfer over here, but it seems to have disappeared. It must have been in one or the other of those blogs of mine that "come and go like mushrooms" as a friend put it.

I am nothing if not inconsistent.



Never mind, I'll link you to an article by jim mcdonald that's more thorough than anything I could come up with anyway. It's here .

Another nice one from Kiva Rose here

This one over at Henriette's has some nice comments (including from jim, above).

I'll just add that I used mullein last night and it was wonderfully helpful. I get weird reactions to allergens. I had a raw throat with a swollen gland as a result of inhaling a couple days' worth of ragweed pollen saturated air. We were on the way to spend a day with friends when it started, and at first I had the usual stuffed up sinuses with a bit of an earache. I had some nettle tincture with me and a few drops did nothing, so I started sucking it back right out of the bottle. (Yes, really!) That knocked back the symptoms but then they'd come back worse .. I kept sucking it back .. long story short, yes you can definitely overdo nettle tincture. It dried out my sinuses too well! Of course the throat got worse. By the time we got home after a long (and extremely fun!) day out I was not a happy camper. Pain was radiating up my neck, around the back of my head and into my shoulders. Sheesh.

I went straight to the garden and picked a couple big leaves from a first year mullein. Put them into a few inches of boiling water in a big pot on the stove, turned the heat down and let it gently simmer for quite a while, then turned off the heat and let it steep. When it was still quite warm I soaked a cloth in there and then used that as a compress. Instant relief for the swollen gland. I kept resoaking the cloth and reapplying for about half and hour and I have to say, I was impressed by how effectively it brought down the swelling.

Good stuff, mullein.