Goldenseal, Non-Native Medicinal

Day 270: Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) is native to the northeastern portions of the US and southeastern sections of Canada. It is an essential in my medicinal garden, providing leaves for a tonic tisane which has anti-inflammatory properties as well as benefiting liver function.

It is somewhat difficult to grow outside its native regions, preferring much the same habitat as buttercups (to which it is distantly related). When I started it here twenty years ago, I dug up a patch of buttercups on the north side of my garage and planted two cultivated starts. It has multiplied nicely by runners, but the patch remains small. Each root (a pip) sends up a single stem which bears only two leaves. To preserve the vigor of the plant, I harvest sections of each leaf, leaving the rest to photosynthesize until it dies down in the autumn.

Today as I was weeding out the returning buttercups, I inadvertently broke off several leaves. You see them here freshly washed and ready to be made into a bitter but very thirst-quenching tea.