Western Coltsfoot | Herbal Benefits, Uses and Actions | Harmonic Arts

Hey everybody, my name is Yara Willard and this is Darcy Ravenhill. Hi. And today we're off to hunt colt's foot. Come with us and walk to the wild lands. Yes. So today we're off to hunt the Western colt's foot. Now this is a little different from the European colt's foot. Although they can be used interchangeably, this one is a totally different Latin name. It's Peticides frigidus. Maybe because it's frigid. Now as you can see, we're just past the flowering stage. We're in the Asteraceae family, which is a family that has dandelion. And you can see some similarities in there. Maybe we'll make a little wish. Always when we're picking plants, we want to make sure we have the right plants. We have to key them out. In this case, we have what's called a palmately divided leaf. That is deeply toothed, as you can see here by these deep tooths. And it has a very woolly underside. These are very easy to identify characteristics of the Western colt's foot. This amazing plant has the ability to stay very strong here in this ground that's moist all year around. Along the sides of roads, in ditches, in places we don't normally think of as a habitat for such a soft plant. But in fact, this plant has been around for a long time. And some people consider it to be a weed because of its ability to stay so strong in these kinds of neighborhoods. What we have here are actually the stalks from the flowers and from just under the leaf here. What we do is we burn this down in a pit and we make a salt out of it. We can add that to our foods. We can also take that salt and mix it with the bark of different trees to create a chew, almost like a tobacco chew. This plant has been used for a long time as medicine. It has demulsant, sedative, and antitussive properties. It's also considered a lung expectorant. Some of these are herbal nerdy words we could break down. Tuss, for example, really means to cough. Antitussive is anti-cough. Expectorant is to expel and expectorate mucus and phlegm out of the body. It has a lot of mucilaginous compounds, which is why it's called demulsant, which is really to soothe and to be softening to the tissue. Say we have some kind of deep bronchial thing, it's going to soothe the inflammation. It's got slightly anti-inflammatory properties in there with some of the mucilaginous compounds. Lots of great medicine in these leaves. It's used very much for those kinds of conditions where we have that lung cough, bronchial asthma, even tuberculosis, and any of these kind of deep lung congestion. But because it's relaxing and sedative on the system, it helps to just calm down that especially irritated cough, that kind of non-productive cough. So if somebody has a really deep congestion, this right here can help to add to any sort of relief bias, antispasmodic, and nervine properties. With this amazing plant, it's very high in polysaccharides, but very low in essential oils. So that way we can boil it down and not worry about losing any of the medicinal factors that we would have found otherwise with it fresh. One of these benefits of boiling it down is we can create a syrup by adding a bit of honey. And that way it's more medicinally accepting for, let's say, young children or elderly who don't like the bitter compounds. If we're to make a lung syrup with this, it's a great way to store it for the winter months when we might get those deep lung congestion and issues that way. Another great way to use this medicine is to make it as a tincture. In this case, we want to do what's called a one-to-five. And we let that macerate for two weeks, pour it off, turn to put it into little bottles. And we're going to take 20 to 30 drops of that two to three times a day during the period of a cold or if we have asthma or any of these kind of deep lung bronchial conditions. Though, to be careful with this plant, it's not a true tonic plant, which means we can't be taking it for a really long period of time. We need to take it in small intervals, maybe a week to two weeks at a time. In this case, the reason being is that it has some liver-potentiating alkaloids that can be toxic. And we just don't want to take a lot of that. Those are mostly found in the stems, though small amounts of them are in the leaves. So be careful, yet enjoy its soothing and healing properties. Although it is easy to harvest these leaves, it's nice to have the proper tool. So in this case, I have my Cumberland Orchsteel. Now, this is made by our friend Max. He makes awesome wildcrafting bush knives. In this case, we have a little hook here and it helps to grab right around these leaves and just hook them off. Nice to have a knife with a hook. Or if you're trying to collect the root, which also uses medicine, we have another special tool called the Hori Hori. Now, this is a herbalist's special weapon where we can use a serrated edge, but also find out how deep we go and not disturb the rest of the soil by having just a small blade. With a root like this, we're going to dig it up very softly and gently because it's a rhizome, so it's very close to the surface. We don't want to accidentally hack it down. So we're going to dig in here, being real careful, making sure that we don't cut any other roots connecting. You can see how the root goes right down along here. This is all connected to the other plants. So as we go, we can kind of dig along and gently tease this root out of the ground. There we go. Wow, that is a really nice fragrance, eh? It's pretty amazing. Yeah. Now we know there's some medicine in that. So we can mash it up and make it into a poultice. Best to do this with two rocks really easily in the forest. In fact, let's see if we can use this as medicine right now. Darcy, do you have a bruise? No. Oh, well. Oh! Now you do. Now we'll see if this works. So we can take a poultice, mashed up roots, and put it on. Now the nice thing about leaves like this, and these big long stems, is you can usually take leaves and turn them into band-aids. You can take that, wrap it on to hold this in place. And then we might take another longer piece of grass or another piece of stem and wrap it around. There you go, Darcy. Better than new. Thanks, yarrow. No problem, buddy. That's what we call good herbalism. As you can see, these flowers are just about past their prime. They bloom first thing in the spring and they come out like giant swamp monsters out of the field. And it's a really great doctrine of signature for how they work as a flower essence. Flower essences are something similar to how the Bach flower remedies are made. They hold the emotional aspects of the plants and how they show up in the world. So this one in particular is for people who are afraid to engage fully in life. It is for that sort of tentativeness, that inability to step into your full power. And so I think what's interesting about that is that this could make a really good remedy for the place that we're at right now in our history and time. Because a lot of us are a little bit afraid to step into this new paradigm of how to show up in the world in a new way that is more in resonation with the planet. So the flower essence of this plant could be good for people who are exhausted or afraid of the evolutionary pathway that we're taking on this planet. As we move forward, we need a little more strength and energy to move into the new paradigm and make this a flourishing, healthy, harmonious and happy planet. So try out your Coltsfoot flower essence or just spend some time with this plant. Connect deeper with that aspect inside of yourself. Ciao for now. See you next time. 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