- Region
- Europe
- Origin
- Europe and temperate Asia; spread worldwide with European settlers. Plantago major
- Other names
- Grote weegbree
Europe · Herb · № 86
Plantago major
Herb · Europe
Greater plantain
Plantago major
The leaf is traditionally bruised and applied to insect bites, small wounds and grazes, and taken as tea for coughs. Clinical evidence is limited.
Safety notes
Clean wounds well first; see a doctor if signs of infection appear. People allergic to plantain pollen may react.
Cautions by tradition (6)
- Natural skin and hair care: Only for small, clean wounds.
- Curanderismo of northern Peru: Healers say that drinking it for a long time can harm eyesight; not for longer than a month.
- Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) medicine: See a doctor for deep wounds.
- Cherokee (Tsalagi) medicine: A snakebite needs a doctor at once.
- Kallawaya healing in Bolivia: An infected wound needs a doctor.
- Chinese materia medica: Not during pregnancy or with qi deficiency without damp heat.
Preparation
Fresh bruised leaf externally; dried leaf as tea or syrup. No dosage is given here.
Use in traditions
Plantain (waybread) is one of the nine herbs of the Anglo-Saxon charm. Native North Americans called it 'white man's footprint' because it appeared wherever Europeans went. The Mapuche also gave the newcomer a name of its own: huinca-llantén, 'the foreigners' plantain'. They laid the leaf on wounds and drank it as a tea.
Applications
Use by tradition
How different herbal traditions describe this herb. Amounts are traditional guidelines checked for obvious errors; they are not medical advice. For poisonous plants no dosage is given on purpose.
Herbal medicine worldwide
Attributed effects
Leaf relaxing expectorant, strengthens mucous membranes, anticatarrhal, antispasmodic, wound-healing; seeds soothing and laxative.
Preparation and amount
Fresh juice 10 ml 3 times a day for inflamed mucous membranes (cystitis, diarrhoea, whooping cough); tea; tincture for catarrh; cough syrup with honey; fresh leaf on poorly healing wounds and insect bites; ointment for wounds, burns and haemorrhoids; gargle for sore throat; seeds as a laxative.
Western herbalism
Attributed effects
Decongestant, cooling, cleansing, soothing, astringent, diuretic; draws out poison (bites, stings, wounds), soothes irritated airways and cough, helps with infections, thrush and inflamed gums.
Preparation and amount
Tea: 1 tsp per cup, 10 min, 1–3 cups a day; tincture 1 dropperful 3 times a day; chewed or bruised leaf directly on the skin; seed decoction with honey for thrush (1 tbsp 4 times a day); root powder or mouthwash for gum inflammation.
Natural skin and hair care
Attributed effects
The leaf contains mucilage and aucubin; traditionally laid bruised on insect bites, nettle stings and small wounds.
Preparation and amount
External: plantain leaf in a salve for small cuts and grazes (see the recipe).
Caution: Only for small, clean wounds.
Curanderismo of northern Peru
Attributed effects
Llantén is used to wash wounds, for bruises and sprains and in mixtures for liver and kidney complaints.
Preparation and amount
Boil the leaves briefly and use as a wash, or lay the fresh leaf on the skin.
Caution: Healers say that drinking it for a long time can harm eyesight; not for longer than a month.
Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) medicine
Attributed effects
On cuts, burns, old sores and spider bites; the root for the exhaustion of an overworked mother.
Preparation and amount
Bind on a whole leaf or lay it on crushed; boil the root of the red-stemmed kind.
Caution: See a doctor for deep wounds.
Cherokee (Tsalagi) medicine
Attributed effects
On burns, blisters, ulcers, stings and snakebites, as a poultice for headache, for dysentery and for babies' bowels; an infusion to strengthen a child learning to walk. The leaves were also cooked with fatback.
Preparation and amount
Fresh leaves crushed or scalded on the skin; a tea of leaf or root.
Caution: A snakebite needs a doctor at once.
Kallawaya healing in Bolivia
Attributed effects
As a gargle for quinsy, with rose petals for diarrhoea, and on wounds.
Preparation and amount
Boil the leaves; crushed fresh leaves on a wound.
Caution: An infected wound needs a doctor.
Chinese materia medica
- Nature and taste
- sweet, slightly cold (seed)
- Meridians
- kidney, lung, liver, bladder, small intestine
Attributed effects
The seed (che qian zi, from the Asian Plantago asiatica) promotes urination in damp heat and cystitis, stops diarrhoea by draining dampness via the urine, helps red eyes (from heat or deficiency, depending on the combination) and dissolves phlegm in cough with lung heat.
Preparation and amount
Traditional dosage: 3–9 g a day, cooked along in a bag. Chew or bruise a leaf and put it on a bee or wasp sting.
Combinations
- With akebia and talc for cystitis
Caution: Not during pregnancy or with qi deficiency without damp heat.
Folklore and herbal magic
Symbolic meanings from folk use and modern herbal magic. These are handed-down associations, not effects.
Heals mind and body, protects, drives away fatigue, gives strength and courage.
Herbal magic and rituals
Attributed effects
In herbal magic associated with healing, protection and strength on the road.
Preparation and amount
Plantain is one of the nine herbs of the Anglo-Saxon Nine Herbs Charm, where it is called 'mother of herbs'. Because it grew along the paths Europeans walked, Indigenous North Americans called it 'white man's footprint'. A bruised leaf on a bite is still a well-known hiker's remedy.
- Ways to prepare herbs
- Tea (infusion)DecoctionTinctureSalve and balmCompress, poultice and pasteSyrup, honey and oxymelPowder and kitchen
- Formulas
- Ba zheng san
Tags
Sources
- en.wikipedia.org
- en.wikipedia.org
- Ernesto Wilhelm de Moesbach, Botánica indígena de Chile (1992)
- Michael & Lesley Tierra, Chinese Traditional Herbal Medicine, vol. II: Materia Medica and Herbal Resource (1998)
- Penelope Ody, The Complete Medicinal Herbal (1993; 2017)
- Stacey Dugliss-Wesselman & Susan Gregg, Herbal Remedies Made Simple (2018)
- Rainer W. Bussmann & Douglas Sharon, Medicinal Plants of the Andes and the Amazon (2015)
- Joseph W. Bastien, Healers of the Andes: Kallawaya Herbalists and Their Medicinal Plants (1987)
- Louis Girault, Kallawaya. Guérisseurs itinérants des Andes (1984)
- James W. Herrick, Iroquois Medical Botany, ed. Dean R. Snow (1995)
- Paul B. Hamel & Mary U. Chiltoskey, Cherokee Plants and Their Uses: A 400 Year History (1975)