Healing Gardens

Plants that inhabit the Shady Seasonal Creek

Pacific Willow, Salix lucida spp. lacianra

Family: Willow, Salicaceae

Description:  Slender and tall with waxy, glossy twigs and smooth leaves with soft edges and pointed ends.  Has yellow hairy flowers

Habitat: River banks, lakeshores, wet meadows

Uses: Bark has strong medicinal properties that are similar to aspirin

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Touch –me-not, Impatiens noli-tangere, jewelweed

Family: Balsam, Balsaminaceae

Description: A succulent annual with egg shaped leaves,yellow flowers and small fruits that burst when touched          

Habitat: Moist forests, streamsides, banks and thickets            

Uses: Has been used for bee stings, poison ivy rash and insect bites

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Salal, Gaultheria shallon

Family: Heather, Ericaceae

Description: One of the most common forest understory shrubs.  A creeping, usually shorter shrub ( but may vary) with leathery, egg shaped leaves, white flowers and reddish berries

Habitat: Coniferous forests, yet found in a number of habitats

Uses: Berries have been eaten by a number of indigenous groups, leaves can be chewed as a hunger suppressant and the berries used to sweeten food or made into jam

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Skunk cabbage, Lysichiton americanum, swamp lantern.

Family: Arum, Araceae

Description: Large leaved perennial with yellow flowers and berry like fruits.

Habitat: Swamps, wet forest and wet meadows.          

Uses: Leaves served as “Indian wax paper” for lining berry baskets and eaten during famine

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Salmonberry, Rubus spectabilis

Family: Rose, Rosaceae 

Description: An erect and golden-brown shrub with prickled branches, darker sharply toothed yellowish leaves and red mushy edible berries          

Habitat: Found in moist places, especially along stream edges            

Uses: Berries can be eaten, as well as the sprouts

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Alder, Alnus spp.

Family: Birch, Betulaceae

Descritpion: A deciduous tree standing up to 32 m tall (the tallest species being Alnus Rubra found in the NW), and has ovate leaves that can be from 7 - 15 cm long with very rigid edges that come to a fine point at the end.  The leaves turn very yellow in the fall and the bark is ashey (grey/white) with moss often covering it.

Habitat: Native to Western North America and in the NW likes to grow on cool and moist slopes 

Uses: Leaves and bark are used as an astringent; it is mildly heating and helps to tonify the small intenstine lining to improve food absorption and fat metabolism

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Wild rose, Rosa gymnocarpa, nootkama

Family: Rose, Rosaceae

Description: A flowering shrub with smallish, sharp thorns, and small ovate leaves with slightly rigid edges.

Habitat: Native to the Pacific Northwest. 

Uses: Rosehips are rich in vit. C and lavinoids.  Rose oil in calming and cooling releiving stress.  Rose water is an astringent and tightens the skin when applied as a wash.  Use the dried flower buds, leaves and hips (after a good frost, says Moore).  Infuse buds in water for an eyewash.  Leaves are used as an astringent.

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Horsetail,  Equisetum arvense

Family: Equisetales    

Uses: The whole herb is used, dried as a diuretic and kidney tonic, to strenghten the mesenchym in kidneys, lungs and liver.  The tea is used as a hair rinse as well as a urinary tract cleansure.  The roots are palatable (often cooked), young fertile shoots are eaten when peeled and cooked.  It also absorbs heavy metals and is high in silica therefore irritating the urinary tract and kidneys if not boiled.  Since it is high in calcium and is good for healing bones and connective tissue functions.

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Fireweed,  Epilobium angustifolium

Family: Willowherb, Onograceae

Uses:  You can collect the flowers as far down the stem as there are green, unwithered leaves.  A tea can be made of the flowers for chronic, pasty, diarrhea.  It is used as an anti-inflammatory for the mouth, throat, stomach and intestine.  Externally, it cools, soothes and helps bring down swelling.

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Coltsfoot, Petasites Palmatus

Family: Aster, Daisy, Compositaceae

Uses:   Collect the leaves in June-August and the stems (plucked at ground level).  Collect the roots in the spring.  The tea made of dried herb is used for coughing and intercostal pain.  The tincture or root tea lessons stomach cramps, spasms in the gallbladder or the colon.  The herb is also smoked for lung irritability (for people who already smoke).  the crushed root poltice is used for sprains and contusions by lessening inflammation

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Bracken fern, Pteridium aquilinum

Class: Pteridopsida

Description: large fronds- usually solitary- triangular blades with a number of leaflet pairs (usually more than ten on each blade)- ranges in between yellow and green

Habitat: lakeshores and bogs, dry to wet forests

Uses: Native peoples used leaves as liner for pit ovens, rhizomes eaten ( caused constipation)

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Other Various Pictures of Plants on Site

Winter Foliage

Growth on a (huckleberry?) plant

Growth on unknown plant

Sword Fern in a bed of alder leaves

Creek

Sources

1.  Gunther, Erna.  Ethnobotany of Western Washington; the knowledge and use of indigenous plants by native Americans.  Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973.

2.  Moore, Michael. Medicinal Plants of the Pacific West. Santa Fe: Red Crane Books, 1993.

3.  Pojar, Jim and MacKinnon, Andy. Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Redmond, Wash.; Vancouver:Lone Line Publishing, 1994.

4. Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia. (2006, February 13). FL: Wikipedia Foundation, Inc. Retrieved February 13, 2006, from http://www.wikipedia.org