Birch study

Every month we dedicate an hour or so to studying one herb in detail. Last week the group decided to think outside the box a little and study one of the trees we are lucky to have in the kirkyard, the chosen tree was Birch.

We looked up the medicinal properties of birch in a our books, and the history of its use, particularly of interest was energising drinks made from its sap and its history of use in Corporal Punishment - birch branches being a favourite for whipping criminals with. Friend of Greyfriars Kirkyard volunteer Les came over and gave us an interesting run down of this.

We also drew the trees and leaves, made an antiseptic tea of its leaves and tried to tap a little of its sap, unfortunately due to it being so dry recently the tree didn't want to give up any sap for us so we will have to wait to try it another time.

Making comfrey paste

 Last week we made a simple paste from comfrey roots (harvested at our friends the Royal Edinburgh Community Gardens http://royaledinburghcommunitygardens.wordpress.com/

Comfrey is great at healing bone wounds and scars and one of its old names was 'knitbone'. It is applied externally to the wound as a poultice and wrapped in muslin. Ours is currently being tested by a woodwork volunteer who is recovering from a broken leg.

Herbs for Coughs

 So here we have the Herb Group! We all gather every Thursday and chat about all things herbal :-)
Today is Thursday the 31st of March and we spent a lovely morning weeding lots of sycamore seedlings from one of the beds. Then we moved indoors after picking some herbs that are known to be good for colds. We thought it would be interesting to tase the different plants raw for a truly natural experience... but we didnt consider the fact that White Horehound was included in our array... it is extremely bitter and not particularly friendly to the tastebuds! We then tried out different herbal teas with the plants.
We picked various plants and flowers, including Stinging nettle, Thyme, Angelica leaves and stem, Primrose, Lungwort, White Horehound, Coltsfoot flower and root.
You will be able to see these in the photos below, as well as some of the herby folk! (From left: Vicky, Danny, Kasia and Micki) Joce was also here, outside the photo.

Coltsfoot flower: perfumed taste, chewy, astringent (drying), soothing, sweet and bitter (depends).Saffron.
Egg yolk sweetness until bitterer middle part. Hint of banana. Hint of straw.
Coltsfoot root: blunt solid, compare with a mild mushroom e.g. oyster mushroom.
Angelica: sweet when the sharpness goes, but bitter like watercress.
Marrubium vulgare: Super bitter! Strong flavour, sharp, astringent, slightly aromatic.
Nettle: fresh.../fishy?
Lungwort: slight sweetness, mild lettuce flavour.
Red primrose: not much taste, mild berry sweet.
Yellow primrose: taste comes on slowly, mushy sweet, hint of butter and butternut.
Thyme: strongly warm. More overpowering in its fresh form.
Lungwort: No taste. Lettuce was mentioned.
Nettle: chews just like salad leaves, something intangible like papaya. Aftertaste of salmon was mentioned.

red primrose tea: a light caramel water, trace of candy.
horehound/angelica tea: warm but a sickly-sweet hits you. Sort of sour passion fruit when held in the mouth.