From Centaury to Kudzu.... but mostly Centaury
https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2021/05/from-centaury-to-kudzu-but-mostly.html
Centaury, Centaurium erythraea, is an important bitter herb that is commonly used in European Herbalism, but rarely mentioned in American herbals. It grows over a large range, from Scotland to the Mediterreanean, north Africa to west Asia. Most Americans, if they have heard of the herb at all, may know it only as an ingredient in tisan, if they are fans of Agatha Christie’s “Poirot”. Centaury is in the Gentian family. Tisane is an ancient herbal tea that likely began as a simple barley water, that was the primary treatment recommended by Hippocrates. Eventually, it came to include many herbs and spices, and the name “tisan” or “ptisana” was used to indicate a medicinal or healing drink in middle English and French.
Dioscorides wrote of Centaury in de Materia Medica:
The little centaury is a herb similar to hypericum or origanum, with a stalk over twenty centimetres high that has corners. The flowers are similar to those of lychnis, a faint Phoenician [reddish] purple. The leaves are small, very long, like rue. The seed is similar to wheat, the root small, miserable and smooth. Pounded while still green and applied it seals wounds, and purges old ulcers and brings them to a scar. Boiled and swallowed down, it expels bile and thick fluids through the bowels. A decoction of it is a fit suppository for sciatica, drawing out blood and easing pain. The juice is good for eye medicines with honey, cleaning away things that darken the pupils. In a pessary it extracts the menstrual flow and is an abortifacient. Taken as a drink it is equally good for disorders of the strength. The herb is juiced; first it is gathered when full of seed and steeped in water for five days, afterwards it is boiled until it floats above the water. Afterwards the cooled herb is pressed and strained through a linen cloth, and boiled again to the consistency of honey. Some beat it (green and full of seed) then press out the juice and throw it into an unglazed ceramic jar. They stir it about in the sun, moving it continuously with a stick, and repeatedly scraping away pieces that hang out. They mix it with moist juice and cover it carefully at night, for dew prevents the thickening of moist juices. Centaury is good for inflammation and bruises from strikes, helps women troubled with motherhood [pregnancy], and eases the pain of slow, painful urination and [urinary] stones. Gather the herb in the spring at sunrise. Many of the dry roots or herbs that are juiced are prepared by boiling (like gentian). Juices pressed out of moist barks, roots, or herbs are stirred around in the sun (as previously mentioned) — including thapsia, mandragora [mandrake], unripe grapes, and similar things. Lycium, wormwood, hypocistis and herbs similar to these are boiled and stirred around as previously mentioned. Centaury is also called limnesion, helleborites, or amaranton, the Magi call it the blood of Hercules, the Romans, febrifuga, some, herba multiradix, the Dacians, tulbela; and it is also called limnaion because it loves moist places.
From there, the waters get a bit muddy, as Centaury is a common name used for several herbs. Saint Hildegard von Bingen seems to have referred to Cornflower or Batchelor’s Buttons under the name of Centaury in her classic work, Physica.
Fr. Kneipp writing in his influential and conversational, My Water Cure, listed Centaury:
Centaury (Erithrea centaurium) is called in German Tausenguldenkraut - literally, the thousand florin herb. How curiously certain herbs have been christened by our ancestors! The reason for this is that they knew their now forgotten worth. Our little flower must have occupied a high social position in the herbal world of those bygone days.
It tastes bitter, and its mission, employed as tea, is to resolve the stomach of superfluous winds and gases, to restore the digestive saps, and act upon the liver and kidneys. It is the best remedy for heartburn. Sufferers from derangement of circulation may seek counsel and help front the herb.
Fr. Kunzel wrote:
Internally one uses the tea for croup, sore throat, bladder ailments, light diarrhea, sleeplessness, but for the internal use one should always add the same amount of juniper berries or common centaury; take half a cup three to five times a day… Four parts of goldenrod and one part of juniper berries (or common centaury) make a good, completely harmless drink for good sleep (half an hour before going to bed)... Centaury works best for reflux.
Centaury was well respected among the old English herbalists, as well. Gerard wrote:
A. The root taken in the quantity of two drams is good for them that be bursten, or spit blood; against the cramp and shrinking of sinews, the shortness of wind or difficulty of breathing, the cough and gripings of the belly.
B. There is not any part of the herb but it rather worketh miracles than ordinary cures in green wounds; for it joineth together the lips of simple wounds in the flesh, according to the first intention, that is, gluing the lips together, not drawing to the place any matter at all.
C. The root of this plant (saith Dioscorides) is a remedy for ruptures, convulsions, and cramps, taken in the weight of two drams, to be given with wine to those that are without a fever, and unto those that have, with water.
D. Galen saith, that the juice of the leaves thereof performeth those things that the root doth; which is also used instead of Lycium, a kind of hard juice of a sharp taste.
Maude Grieves wrote of Centaury:
The name of the genus to which it is at present assigned, Erythraea, is derived from the Greek erythros (red), from the colour of the flowers. The genus was formerly called Chironia, from the Centaur Chiron, who was famous in Greek mythology for his skill in medicinal herbs, and is supposed to have cured himself with it from a wound he had accidentally received from an arrow poisoned with the blood of the hydra. The English name Centaury has the same origin. The ancients named the plant Fel Terrae, or Gall of the Earth from its extreme bitterness. The old Engiish name of Felwort is equivalent in meaning to this, and is applied to all the plants of the Gentian family. It is also thought to be the 'Graveolentia Centaurea' of Virgil, to which Lucretius gives the more significant epithet of tristia, in reference to this same intense bitterness. As this bitterness had a healing and tonic effect attributed to it, we sometimes find the Centaury called Febrifuga and Feverwort. It is known popularly also as Christ's Ladder, and the name Centaury has become corrupted in Worcestershire to 'Centre of the Sun.'
We find a reference to it in Le Petit Albert. Fifteen magical herbs of the Ancients are given:
'The eleventh hearbe is named of the Chaldees, Isiphon . . . of Englishmen, Centory . . . this herbe hath a marvellous virtue, for if it be joined with the blood of a female lapwing, or black plover, and put with oile in a lamp, all that compass it about shall believe themselves to be witches, so that one shall believe of another that his head is in heaven and his feete on earth; and if the aforesaid thynge be put in the fire when the starres shine it shall appeare yt the sterres runne one agaynste another and fyghte.' (English translation, 1619.)
Also in a translation of an old mediaeval Latin poem of the tenth century, by Macer, there is mention of Centaury (with other herbs) as being powerful against 'wykked sperytis.'
Of all the bitter appetizing wild herbs which serve as excellent simple tonics, the Centaury is the most efficacious, sharing the antiseptic virtues of the Field Gentian and the Buckbean.
Medicinal Action and Uses---Aromatic bitter, stomachic and tonic. It acts on the liver and kidneys, purifies the blood, and is an excellent tonic.
The dried herb is given in infusion or powder, or made into an extract. It is used extensively in dyspepsia, for languid digestion with heartburn after food, in an infusion of 1 OZ. of the dried herb to 1 pint of water. When run down and suffering from want of appetite, a wineglassful of this infusion Centaury Tea - taken three or four times daily, half an hour before meals, is found of great benefit. The same infusion may also be taken for muscular rheumatism.
Culpepper tells us that:
'the herbe is so safe that you cannot fail in the using of it, only give it inwardly for inward diseases, use it outwardly for outward diseases. 'Tis very wholesome, but not very toothsome.'
He says:
'it helps those that have the dropsy, or the green-sickness, being much used by the Italians in powder for that purpose. It kills worms ... as is found by experience.... A dram of the powder taken in wine, is a wonderful good help against the biting and poison of an adder. The juice of the herb with a little honey put to it, is good to clear the eyes from dimness, mists and clouds that offend or hinder sight. It is singularly good both for green and fresh wounds, as also for old ulcers and sores, to close up the one and cleanse the other, and perfectly to cure them both, although they are hollow or fistulous; the green herb, especially, being bruised and laid thereto. The decoction thereof dropped into the ears, cleanses them from worms . . . and takes away all freckles, spots, and marks in the skin, being washed with it.'
The Saxon herbalists prescribed it largely for snake-bites and other poisons, and it was long celebrated for the cure of intermittent fevers, hence its name of Feverwort.
The herb formed the basis of the once famous Portland Powder, which was said to be a specific for gout.
Centaury is given with Barberry Bark for jaundice. It has also been much employed as a vermifuge, and a decoction of the plant is said to destroy body vermin.
The green herb, bruised, is reputed to be good as an application to wounds and sores.
Plants for A Future states:
Medicinal use of Centaury: One of the most useful bitter herbs, centaury strengthens digestive function, especially within the stomach. By increasing stomach secretions it hastens the breakdown of food, it also stimulates the appetite and increases bile production. The plant needs to be take over a number of weeks and an infusion should be slowly sipped so that the components (their bitterness can be detected at a dilution of 1:3,500) can stimulate reflex activity throughout the upper digestive tract. The whole herb is appetizer, aromatic, bitter, cholagogue, diaphoretic, digestive, emetic, weakly febrifuge, hepatic, stomachic and tonic. It acts on the liver and kidneys, purifies the blood and is an excellent tonic for the digestive system. Externally, the fresh green herb is said to be a good application to wounds and sores. It is often used in combination with other herbs such as camomile (Chamaemelum nobile), meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) and marshmallow (Althaea officinalis). The whole plant is harvested when in flower and can be dried for later use. The plant is used in Bach flower remedies - the keywords for prescribing it are "Weak willed", "Too easily influenced" and "Willing servitors". A homeopathic remedy is made from the plant. It is used in the treatment of liver and gall bladder ailments.
According to several sources, although Centaury is not native to North America it has been naturalized in several areas. While some are passionately concerned about “native plants” and avoiding introducing species, I do not share this concern especially when it comes to useful medicinal and food plants. “Native to when?” is the question. Few, if any plants we consider native truly find their origins where we find them. Seeds are carried by winds and water, birds, mammals and humans. I have no qualms of adding this one to my grow list…. But heck, I forage for kudzu as a source of food, medicine, wine and flower jelly… I love even “The vine that ate the South!” Rest in Peace, Channing Cope; some of us still value your work.
(Cope’s work, The Front Porch Farmer, along with his popular radio show and newspaper column, popularized the use of kudzu for erosion control on grazed lands. Kudzu is excellent hay. Unfortunately government agencies used it to stabilize river banks and roadsides, where it could not be controlled by grazing and it became extremely invasive and out of control. Cope got the blame for bad government policy.)
Author: Judson Carroll. Judson Carroll is an Herbalist from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. His weekly articles may be read at
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Judson is the co-author of an important new book based on the 1937 edition of Herbs and Weeds by Fr. Johannes Künzle. This new translation, entitled The Herbs and Weeds of Fr. Johannes Künzle, with commentary by modern herbalists explores and expands on the work of one of the most important herbalists of the 20th century. Click here to read more about The Herbs and Weeds of Fr. Johannes Künzle: Southern Appalachian Herbs: Announcing a New Book, The Herbs and Weeds of Fr. Johannes Künzle
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Disclaimer
The information on this site is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing on this site has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I am not a doctor. The US government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine and their is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I'm just a guy who studies herbs. I am not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write is accurate or true! I can tell you what herbs have "traditionally been used for." I can tell you my own experience and if I believe an herb helped me. I cannot, nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use any herb I, or anyone else, mentions you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, sensitivity or underlying condition that no one else shares and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health. By continuing to read my blog you agree to be responsible for yourself, do your own research, make your own choices and not to blame me for anything, ever.
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