Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines: Hypericum, Saint John’s Wort part 1

Fourteen varieties of Saint John’s Wort have documented use in Herbal Medicine:  Hypericum androsaemum, Hypericum ascyron - Great Saint John's Wort, Hypericum attenuatum, Hypericum bellum, Hypericum calycinum - Rose Of Sharon, Hypericum erectum, Hypericum forrestii, Hypericum hypericoides - St. Andrews Cross, Hypericum japonicum - Matted St. John's Wort, Hypericum kamtschaticum, Hypericum monogynum, Hypericum patulum, Hypericum perforatum - St. John's Wort), Hypericum sampsonii 

Native to my region are: Hypericum buckleyi (Buckley's St. Johnswort, Granite Dome St. Johnswort), Hypericum cistifolium (Roundpod St. Johnswort), Hypericum crux-andreae (St. Andrew's-Cross, St. Peter's-Wort), Hypericum densiflorum (Bushy St. John's-Wort), Hypericum fasciculatum (Peelbark St. Johnswort), Hypericum galioides (Bedstraw St. Johnswort), Hypericum hypericoides (St. Andrew's-Cross), Hypericum lloydi (Sandhill St. John's-Wort, Lloyd's St. John's-Wort), Hypericum nitidum (Carolina St. Johnswort), Hypericum nudiflorum (Early St. John's-Wort), Hypericum prolificum (Shrubby St. John's-Wort), Hypericum stragulum (St. Andrew's-Cross), Hypericum suffruticosum (Pineland St. John's-wort) and Hypericum tenuifolium (Atlantic St. Johnswort, Sandhill St. John's-Wort).  One is naturalized, Hypericum frondosum.

Saint John’s Wort is one of the most useful and storied herbs in Herbal Medicine.

Dioscorides wrote:

Hypericum is a shrub twenty centimetres high, full of reddish branches, with a yellowish flower that (crushed with the fingers) yields a bloody juice — which is why it is called androsemon. It has leaves similar to rue. The small pods are somewhat rough, long in the circumference, the size of barley, in which is a black seed smelling of rosin. It grows in tilled and rough places. It has a diuretic strength, and inserted as a pessary moves the menstrual flow. A decoction (taken as a drink with wine) drives away fevers with paroxysms ocurring every third or fourth day. A decoction of the seed (taken as a drink for forty days) cures sciatica. The leaves (applied together with the seed) heal burns. It is also called androsemon, corion, or chamepitys, because the seed issimilar in smell to the rosin of pine.

Ascyrum is also a kind of hypericum, differing in size, bigger in the branches, more full of sprigs, and with the small leaves appearing a purple colour; it bears yellow flowers, and fruit (similar to hypericum) smelling of rosin, and bruised (as it were), staining the fingers with

blood, so that it is called acrosemon for this. A decoction of the fruit (taken as a drink with a pint of honey water) is available for sciatica. It expels much bilious excrement. It must be given continuously until they are cured. Smeared on, it is good for burns. It is also called ascyroides, or acrosemon.

Androsaemum differs from hypericum and from ascyrum being a shrub of thin branches, full of sprigs. The little stems are a purple colour, the leaves three times or four times bigger than rue, which send out a juice similar to wine when bruised. It has many wings on the top open on each side and feathered, around which are small little flowers of a yellowish colour. The seed is in a little cup similar to that of black poppy (as it were) marked with lines and points. The filaments yield a rosin-like smell when bruised. Two teaspoonfuls of the seed of this (pounded into small

pieces and taken in a drink) expel bilious excrement, and it especially cures sciatica. One must sip water after the purge. The herb (smeared on) heals burns and stops blood. It is also called dionysias, or ascyron.

Gerard wrote of Saint John’s Wort:

A. St. John's Wort with his flowers and seed boiled and drunken, provoketh urine, and is right good against the stone in the bladder, and stoppeth the lask. The leaves stamped are good to be laid upon burnings, scaldings, and all wounds; and also for rotten and filthy ulcers.

B. The leaves, flowers, and seeds stamped, and put into a glass with olive oil, and set in the hot sun for certain weeks together, and then drained from those herbs, and the like quantity of new put in, and sunned in like manner, doth make an oil of the colour of blood, which is a most precious remedy for deep wounds, and those that are through the body, for sinews that are pricked, or any wound made with a venomed weapon. I am accustomed to make a compound oil hereof; the making of which ye shall receive at my hands, because that I know in the world there is not a better, no not natural balsam itself; for I dare undertake to cure any such wound as absolutely in each respect, if not sooner and better, as any man whatsoever shall or may with natural balsam.

Take white wine two pints, olive oil four pounds, oil of Turpentine two pounds, the leaves, flowers and seeds of St. John's Wort, of each two great handfuls gently bruised; put them all together into a great double glass, and set it in the sun eight or ten days; then boil them in the same glass per balneum Mariæ, that is, in a kettle of water with some straw in the bottom, wherein the glass must stand to boil: which done, strain the liquor from the herbs, and do as you did before, putting in the like quantity of herbs, flowers, and seeds, but not any more wine. And so have you a great secret for the purposes aforesaid.

C. Dioscorides saith, That the seed drunk for the space of forty days together, cureth the sciatica, and all aches that happen in the hips.

D. The same author saith, That being taken with wine it taketh away tertian and quartan agues.

Mrs. Grieve tells us:

A herbaceous perennial growing freely wild to a height of 1 to 3 feet in uncultivated ground, woods, hedges, roadsides, and meadows; short, decumbent, barren shoots and erect stems branching in upper part, glabrous; leaves pale green, sessile, oblong, with pellucid dots or oil glands which may be seen on holding leaf to light. Flowers bright cheery yellow in terminal corymb. Calyx and corolla marked with black dots and lines; sepals and petals five in number; ovary pear-shaped with three long styles. Stamens in three bundles joined by their bases only. Blooms June to August, followed by numerous small round blackish seeds which have a resinous smell and are contained in a three-celled capsule; odour peculiar, terebenthic; taste bitter, astringent and balsamic.

There are many ancient superstitions regarding this herb. Its name Hyperieum is derived from the Greek and means 'over an apparition,' a reference to the belief that the herb was so obnoxious to evil spirits that a whiff of it would cause them to fly.

Medicinal Action and Uses---Aromatic, astringent, resolvent, expectorant and nervine. Used in all pulmonary complaints, bladder troubles, in suppression of urine, dysentery, worms, diarrhoea, hysteria and nervous depression, haemoptysis and other haemorrhages and jaundice. For children troubled with incontinence of urine at night an infusion or tea given before retiring will be found effectual; it is also useful in pulmonary consumption, chronic catarrh of the lungs, bowels or urinary passages. Externally for fomentations to dispel hard tumours, caked breasts, ecchymosis, etc.

Preparations and Dosages---1 OZ. of the herb should be infused in a pint of water and 1 to 2 tablespoonsful taken as a dose. Fluid extract, 1/2 to 1 drachm.

The oil of St. John's Wort is made from the flowers infused in olive oil.

An Irish Herbal states:

It provokes the urine and breaks up the stone in the bladder.  It stops diarrhea and cures fevers.  The seed, boiled and drunk for forty days, heals sciatica, and if pounded, it makes an effective application to burns, wounds and boils.

Fr. Kneipp wrote:

St. John's - wort , on account of its great effects, formerly bore the name of witch's-herb. Now-a-days both itself and its services are quite forgotten. 

This medicinal herb has a particular influence on the liver ; its tea is an excellent remedy for it. A small admixture of aloe -powder increases the effect, which can be observed chiefly in the urine , whole flakes of morbid matters are sometimes washed away with it. 

Head complaints arising from watery matters or obstructions of phlegm in the head, or from the gases rising to the head ; stomach spasms, slight obstructions of phlegm on the chest and lungs are healed at once by tea made of St. John's-wort. 

Mothers, who are caused a great deal of trouble and anxiety by their little bed - wetters, could tell us much about the strong effects of such tea. 

If St. John's-wort is not to be had, common-yarrow (Achillea millefolium L.) may be used in all the given cases. 

Brother Aloysius tells us:

It is used for lung complaints, chronic catarrh, asthma, chills, bladder catarrh, and if the urine is thick.  It is also used for hysteria, jaundice, absence of menstruation due to illness, green sickness, blood spitting, leukorrhea, pneumonia, rheumatism, fever, intestinal blockage, dysentery, nervous cramps and uterine cramps….  Leaves and flowers boiled* in olive oil are a good remedy for sores and contusions.  For shivering and shaking in those who suffer from nerves, this oil should be rubbed on twice a day.  For bruises, a cloth dipped in this oil should be placed on the affected area.  To strengthen the tendons, rub them twice a day with this oil

*The old German herbalists often recommended cooking herbs in oil to make an oil infusion.  Modern herbalists have found stronger properties from herbs slowly steeped in warm oil.

Fr. Künzle wrote:

St. John's wort can be recognized immediately by the blood. If you squeeze a half-open blossom 

between your fingernails, blood will come out; the useless variety has no blood. You can find St. 

John's wort in sunny edges of meadows, on empty farmland, on semi-dry soils, very often in 

mountainous pastures and in the Alps. The latter are the smallest and have the darkest blood.

The leaves and blossoms of St. John's wort, made into tea, clear the head, clean the mucus from 

the lungs, stomach, kidneys and bladders; if the infusion is red, take a sip of this tea every hour; it also often helps with blood cramps and abdominal pain.

St John’s wort oil is very famous.

This is how you prepare the red oil: take a couple of handfuls of St John’s wort flowers, crush them until they bleed, put them in olive oil, put the glass in the sun for ten days until the oil turns red; take as many fresh flowers again, crush them again, put them again in the same oil and again in the sun for ten days; you can do it three to four times until the oil turns dark red.

Use of this oil: It quenches internal and external gangrene in humans and in cattle, it relieves pain from burns and scalds, also from lumbago and rheumatic pain by rubbing it in. It is also used internally for colic; it is used for stab wounds, cuts and bruises and should therefore not be 

missing in any home.

If the small, well-behaved cat gets a “need”, give him a few times St John’s wort oil; if an honest, hard-working domestic chicken has symptoms of cough or watery eyes or some inner burn, so that it stands around with its tail hanging, give it some oil.

… to be continued

PS. New in my Woodcraft Shop:

Cooking Spoon #4

This article is an excerpt from 

Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines of The American Southeast An Herbalist's Guide

Read about Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines of The American Southeast An Herbalist's Guide: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/06/medicinal-shrubs-and-woody-vines-of.html

Available for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2T4Y5L6: by Judson Carroll

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Author: Judson Carroll. Judson Carroll is an Herbalist from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

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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.