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Blind Nettle



    Scientific Names

    Blind Nettle
    • Lamium album L.
    • Nettle family

    Common Names

    ivyDead nettle
    ivyNettle flowers
    ivyStingless nettle
    ivyWhite archangel
    ivyWhite dead-nettle
    ivyWhite nettle
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    Parts Usually Used

    Plant, flowers
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    Description of Plant(s) and Culture

    Blind nettle is a perennial plant; the hollow quadrangular stem is hairy, little-branched, and green or sometimes violet-hued. The leaves are opposite, petioled, ovate and cordate, hairy on both sides, and serrate. White bilabiate flowers appear from April to October.
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    Where Found

    Found in gardens and waste grounds of New England, and in Europe along roadsides, hedges, fences, walls, railroad embankments, and thickets.
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    Medicinal Properties

    Antispasmodic, astringent, expectorant, styptic
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    Legends, Myths and Stories

    According to an old recipe book, steel dipped in the juice of this plant becomes flexible.
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    Uses

    An infusion made from the plant is used for leucorrhea, irregular menstrual periods, and weak menstrual flow, stomach and intestinal problems, and vaginal douches. The infusion can be used as a bath additive to relieve uterine cramps, boils, and tumors. A poultice of boiled leaves and flowers can be used for tumors, boils, sores, varicose veins, and gouty pains. A tea or tincture made from the flowers is used for insomnia. Use young leaves in a salad for a spring tonic. Acts as astringent and is soothing with specific action on the reproductive system, reducing benign prostate enlargement and acting as a uterine tonic; useful after prostate surgery.
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    Formulas or Dosages

    Infusion: use 2 tsp. plant or flowers with 1 cup water. Take 1 to 1 1/2 cups a day, unsweetened, a mouthful at a time.

    Powder: take 1/4 to 1/2 tsp., 3 times a day.

    Tincture: 15 ml. per day.
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    Bibliography

    Buy It! The Complete Medicinal Herbal, by Penelope Ody, Dorling Kindersley, Inc, 232 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, First American Edition, copyright 1993

    Buy It! Culpeper's Complete Herbal & English Physician, by Nicholas Culpeper, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, 1990, (reprint of 1814)

    Herbal Gardening, compiled by The Robison York State Herb Garden, Cornell Plantations, Matthaei Botanical Gardens of the University of Michigan, University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley., Pantheon Books, Knopf Publishing Group, New York, 1994, first edition

    Buy It! Planetary Herbology, by Michael Tierra, C.A., N.D., O.M.D., Lotus Press, PO Box 325, Twin Lakes. WI 53181., Copyright 1988, published 1992

    Buy It! The Herb Book, by John Lust, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. copyright 1974.

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