Plants also have histories, and some of them are spectacular.  During the next 2-3 months I hope to make a short exploration into the medicinal uses humans have made of certain plants.  Some of them, e.g., the western yarrow prairie wildflower have had a significant impact upon human life.  The western yarrow, mentioned in last month’s OE article, found in our MLH prairie, and which begins blooming in early or mid-summer, is a member of a famous plant group.  One or another species from this group can be found in prairies, meadows, and open woods on all northern continents.  Two field guides containing photos and descriptions of the plants discussed soon will be in our MLH Library.

The use of yarrows by humans truly is historic:  the generic name for the group, Achillea, is based on the legend that the great Greek warrior, Achilles used it to treat battle wounds.  Yarrow was a popular medicine in Europe through the ages.  The Gerarde herbal, printed in 1636, stated that the leaves of the yarrow “do close up wounds and keepe them from inflammation:  it staunches bloud in any part of the body.”  “Most men say that the leaves chewed, and especially greene, are a remedy for the tooth-ache.”  In his 1830 Medical Flora or Manual of Medical Botany of the United States, Constantine Rafinesque stated that the yarrow is a good remedy for hemorrhoids, dysentery, hemotysis, menstrual afflictions, wounds, cancer and hypochondria.  Charles Millspaugh, in his 1892 Medicinal Plants, gave a detailed recipe for preparation of the whole green plant and stated that it was a good treatment for a "variety of common ailments.”

In his 2005 book, Wildflowers and Grasses of Kansas, Michael John Haddock wrote that Indians used yarrow for many ailments including coughs, colds, throat irritations, toothaches, respiratory diseases, and to treat wounds and stop bleeding.  In his Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie, 1992, Kelly Kindscher states that “yarrow has been used in a wide variety of medicinal treatments by at least 58 different Indian tribes.”  Kindscher further states that most uses by Indians were identical to those in Europe, with the most common being to treat coughs, throat infections, and to stop bleeding.  Settlers out on the American prairies surely either brought this information with them of borrowed treatment methods from neighboring Indian tribes.

To tweak the term “medicinal” just a bit, I will add that Kindscher also mentions that the famous Swedish botanist, Linnaeus, noted that the Swedes used yarrow instead of hops to brew beer and considered the beer thus brewed to be more intoxicating.  As Benjamin Franklin once remarked:  “. . . every knack being capable of improvement."