Plantain the People Plant | Herbal Jedi

Hey my name is Yarrow Willard and today I want to share with you a herb that you've probably seen everywhere. It's plantain. This little guy right here. You've probably stepped on this all over the place. Now this grows in between the sidewalk cracks everywhere around urban settings. In fact, when the natives first saw the white people they found that it was growing in the tire tracks behind their wagons and they nicknamed this white man's footprint. This is a plant that comes from and has followed us wherever we go. So it's one of those people plants we say. The latin name is plantago and there are a number of different species in this. In this case, we have plantago major which is this wide leaf one but there's also one named plantago lancelota and in fact there's another one named plantago psyllium which is where the psyllium seed comes from. As you might have guessed, it comes from psyllium seed. This is one of those moistening herbs. So plantain, growing everywhere around the northern temperate regions now, likes compact soils. So you've seen this probably in your yard, you've seen this in empty fields, you've seen this all over the place. But what is it good for? What is it used for? Well, this is a plant that's been used since early early early greek herbalism. So all of the old eclectics used this plant because it was super valuable and in fact it's become one of my favorites. Now this one here is a great example. I'm going to pull one of these leaves. I'm just going to show you. One of its other names is ribwort because you'll see it has all these kind of ribs that grow along it. But here is a good example of one that can be used for one of its classic things as a herbal band-aid. Now this is a little dirty. I know we're on the side of a pathway here but I know dirt helps you grow. I'm going to chew this up. Typically we make a spit poultice with this plant. Chew it up and stick it on a wound like that. Why I picked this one is because I just wanted to show you how easy here's a plant you can take and stick it through itself to make a herbal band-aid. Really simply I can make myself a first aid remedy and not only does this make an easy band-aid, the medicinal qualities of this are those that are drawing. So this is a herbal drawing agent. So it pulls out toxins. It pulls out inflammation. It's actually been even shown to pull out venom and bites and stings and the pain that comes from this type of wound. So classically whenever I have gotten a bee sting, an ant bite, a mosquito bite, my first thing I do is look for plantain and it makes a great first aid remedy that way that we can use it. Chew it up like a spit poultice. Put it right on externally or we can also take it and just rub it around in our hands and take the juice from it and use it that way. So I just rub that around and that juice has this mucilaginous cooling effect. So any kind of inflamed tissues, plantain is the perfect remedy for it. Not only is it used for wounds and externally that way, this same mucilaginous quality, the soothing moistening quality of plantain can be taken internally to help work with any of the mucous membranes. This is probably where it shines the most. Even though it's great as first aid, it's so great for healing bleeding ulcers and digestive tract infections and as well as pulling out heat and inflammation. So we have a world now where tons of people are literally suffering from irritable bowel and chronic kind of inflammation in the gut. This plant when taken as a juice, as a tea or as a tincture can be used to help soothe some of that inflammatory digestive tract issues. If you see the seeds when they're coming up around mid-summer, these seeds are quite mucilaginous and you can use them as a type of psyllium to help with the lower intestinal tract to pull out and to kind of clean and cleanse that whole area of the body. So I've typically done this a bit as a mid-summer cleanse because it's so hot at that time of the year, plantain seeds are the perfect thing to just cool down the whole body. So plantain's affinity to cleanse and disinfect works not just with the external but also with all the internal mucous membranes which means not just the digestive tract but actually the gums and the lungs specifically as well. So when we're working with the mouth this is a great first aid remedy for anyone who has mouth sores, gum inflammation or especially if they've had a tooth extracted or some kind of infection. We can use this either chewing it up and rinsing it around the mouth or making a tea and gargling with it on a regular basis to pull out infection. I've personally used this for the lungs quite regularly considering myself I need that deeper lung bronchial type energy. This is a great medicine for me and many other people in the spring when they get kind of asthma or kind of congested lungs but also when there's heat right so when they got a hot inflamed hack. Plantain is then used as a tincture or as a tea or as a juice taken internally to pull the heat and infection out of the lungs. It's a great one to help add into any kind of deeper bronchial type infection. So all right that's a little bit about plantain. I hope you get out and find this plant. It's invaluable, it grows everywhere, it's one of these people plants that is a perfect first aid remedy for you to add to your medicine repertoire. So next time you get a bee sting, a mosquito bite, an ant bite, anything like this skin inflammation, eczema, psoriasis, this type of thing I hope you look to plantain to help heal you. That's all for now we'll see you next time. Oh before you go I just wanted to show you how abundant this plant is. I mean look at this here's plantain everywhere and I'm just up near the parking lot of this park and I just see thousands and thousands of plantains. So this is a plant you can find all around you and it's going to help you heal anytime you need it. That's another people plant. See you next time.