Medicinal Herbs — Page 4

Kava (Piper methysticum) in a Pacific Island garden with jointed stems, heart-shaped leaves, knobby rhizomes, and a botanical inset of root cross-section, leaf, node, and flower spike

Monograph

Kava

Piper methysticum

Kava (Piper methysticum) is a sterile, cultivated pepper of Oceania. The name is Polynesian for bitter. The drink is made from peeled root a...

Oil painting of flowering pink lapacho (Handroanthus impetiginosus) trees in a golden-hour Paraguayan landscape, with a botanical inset of a palmately compound leaf, pink-magenta trumpet flowers, a long seed pod, and inner bark

Monograph

Lapacho (Pau d'Arco)

Handroanthus impetiginosus

Lapacho, better known in English as pau d’arco, is the inner bark of large South American trumpet trees, brewed as a tea and sold in capsule...

True lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) in long violet rows across a sunlit Provençal upland with grey-green mounds and distant hills, painted in oils, with a parchment botanical inset of flower spike, calyx, and narrow leaf

Monograph

Lavender

Lavandula angustifolia

Lavender is the plant that smells like a clean linen cupboard and sells as calm in a bottle. The label usually says relaxing. The plant behi...

Oil painting of a terraced lemon grove above a blue Mediterranean bay in warm light, with a botanical inset of a thorny twig with glossy leaves, purple-tinged white flowers, and a halved lemon showing segments and oil-dotted peel

Monograph

Lemon

Citrus × limon

Lemon is the sour yellow fruit of Citrus × limon, a thorny evergreen citrus tree, and this page is about the three lemon products people use...

Oil painting of lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) by a mossy stone wall with honeybees and a beehive, with a botanical inset of a leafy stem, a small white flower, and a bee

Monograph

Lemon Balm

Melissa officinalis

Lemon balm is a lemon-scented member of the mint family whose genus name, Melissa, comes from the Greek word for bee. It has been grown in E...

Dried licorice root pieces and powder on a wooden surface

Monograph

Licorice

Glycyrrhiza glabra

Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) is one of the oldest and most widely used medicinal plants in the world, with a documented history stretching...

Oil painting of tall lovage with yellow umbels in a golden-hour cottage kitchen garden by a stone wall, with a botanical inset of a glossy divided leaf, a flat flower umbel, winged ribbed fruits, and a thick carrot-like root

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Lovage

Levisticum officinale

Lovage is a tall, celery-scented perennial of the carrot family (Apiaceae) that has been grown in European gardens for well over a thousand...

Maca (Lepidium meyenii) on a high Andean puna with ruffled basal leaves, swollen cream hypocotyls, and a botanical inset of hypocotyl, four-petaled flower, leaf, and silicle

Monograph

Maca

Lepidium meyenii

Maca (Lepidium meyenii) is a mustard-family crop of the high Peruvian Andes, grown for a swollen hypocotyl that looks like a turnip and eats...

Oil painting of marshmallow (Althaea officinalis) with pale pink flowers and velvety leaves at a coastal marsh edge, with a botanical inset of the pale root, a leaf, and a flower

Monograph

Marshmallow Root

Althaea officinalis

Marshmallow root is the classic mucilage herb. The pale root of Althaea officinalis, a tall, soft-leaved plant of marshy ground near the sea...

Milk thistle (Silybum marianum) on a sunlit Mediterranean field margin, broad spiny leaves marbled with white veins below a spiky purple flower head, painted in oils, with a parchment botanical inset of the seed-like fruit and silky pappus

Monograph

Milk Thistle

Silybum marianum

Milk thistle is the herb most people think of first for liver support. The plant is a spiny Mediterranean thistle with white-veined leaves;...

Oil painting of a slender moringa tree with feathery foliage and long hanging pods beside a dry village field in India at golden hour, with a botanical inset of a finely divided leaf, creamy-white flowers, an open pod, and winged seeds

Monograph

Moringa

Moringa oleifera

Moringa is the fast-growing drumstick tree, Moringa oleifera, native according to Kew’s Plants of the World Online to northeastern Pakistan...

Oil painting of mullein (Verbascum thapsus) with tall yellow flower spikes above woolly grey-green rosettes in a dry meadow, with a botanical inset of a leaf, a flower, and the spike

Monograph

Mullein

Verbascum thapsus

Mullein is one of the most recognizable weeds of dry, disturbed ground: a rosette of soft, felted leaves in its first year and, in its secon...

Oil painting of flowering myrtle shrubs on a sunlit Mediterranean hillside above the sea, with a botanical inset of glossy opposite leaves, a white flower with a puff of stamens, and blue-black berries

Monograph

Myrtle

Myrtus communis

Myrtle is the evergreen shrub of the Mediterranean hillside, with glossy, aromatic leaves, white starry flowers full of stamens, and blue-bl...

Oil painting of a broad-crowned neem tree beside a dusty village road on the plains of India at golden hour, with a botanical inset of a pinnate leaf with toothed leaflets, small white flowers, and olive-shaped yellow-green fruits

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Neem

Azadirachta indica

Neem is a fast-growing evergreen tree of the mahogany family, Meliaceae, probably native to Assam and Indo-China and now planted across Indi...

Oil painting of gnarled olive trees with silvery foliage on a terraced Mediterranean hillside at golden hour, with a botanical inset of a twig of narrow gray-green leaves, small creamy-white flowers, and green and purple-black olives

Monograph

Olive Leaf

Olea europaea

Olive leaf is the leathery, silver-backed leaf of Olea europaea, the evergreen tree that gives us olives and olive oil. The leaves are not a...

Oil painting of flowering oregano on a rocky Mediterranean hillside above the sea at golden hour, with a botanical inset of a reddish stem with opposite oval leaves and rounded clusters of tiny pink flowers visited by a bee

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Oregano

Origanum vulgare

Oregano is the pungent kitchen herb that flavors pizza, and it has a second life as “oil of oregano,” a concentrated supplement sold for inf...

Oil painting of passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) vines with fringed purple flowers on a split-rail fence in a Southern meadow, with a botanical inset of a flower, a three-lobed leaf, and a maypop fruit

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Passionflower

Passiflora incarnata

Passionflower is a climbing vine of the southeastern United States whose dried leaves, stems, and flowers have long been taken as a calming...

Oil painting of pelargonium (Pelargonium sidoides) rosettes with dark wine-red flowers in South African grassland at golden hour, with a botanical inset of a heart-shaped velvety leaf, a dark maroon flower, and the red-brown root

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Pelargonium

Pelargonium sidoides

Pelargonium, sold in Germany as Umckaloabo and in Britain as Kaloba, is a root medicine from a small wild plant of the grasslands of South A...

Peppermint (Mentha × piperita) spreading along a wet ditch in an English field, dark green toothed leaves on purple-tinged square stems with pale lilac flower spikes, painted in oils, with a parchment botanical inset of a leaf, runner, and flower whorl

Monograph

Peppermint

Mentha × piperita

Peppermint is the rare herb with a guideline behind it. In 2021 the American College of Gastroenterology suggested peppermint oil for relief...

Oil painting of tall maritime pines with furrowed red-brown bark rising from sandy dunes in southwest France at golden hour, with a botanical inset of paired long needles, a glossy brown cone, and a slab of thick plated bark

Monograph

Pine Bark

Pinus pinaster

Pine bark extract, as sold in supplements, usually means an extract of the bark of the maritime pine, Pinus pinaster, a tall two-needled pin...

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Herb library

Kava

Lapacho (Pau d'Arco)

Lavender

Lemon

Lemon Balm

Licorice

Lovage

Maca

Marshmallow Root

Milk Thistle

Moringa

Mullein

Myrtle

Neem

Olive Leaf

Oregano

Passionflower

Pelargonium

Peppermint

Pine Bark