Rosebay willowherb

Rosebay willowherb: what was it used for?

An astringent herb and a tea. Grieve gives the roots and leaves as demulcent, tonic, and astringent, used in domestic medicine “in decoction, infusion and cataplasm,” much in America as an intestinal astringent, and recommended for whooping cough, hiccough, and asthma. The European Medicines Agency’s assessment report adds that Native Americans used the roots and aerial parts outwardly for skin infections and rectal bleeding, and that in Russia the leaves, plain or fermented, were drunk as ‘Ivan tea’ or ‘Kapor tea’ for stomach ulcers, gastritis, and sleeplessness.

Rosebay willowherb: what does modern science say?

The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee accepts the herb of E. angustifolium and of the small-flowered E. parviflorum as a traditional herbal medicine, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for the relief of lower urinary tract symptoms of benign enlargement of the prostate, after a doctor has excluded serious conditions (monograph of 2015). That use, its assessment report explains, became popular in Austria, Germany, and Poland after Maria Treben’s books on herbal remedies, from 1978, which sold more than eight million copies; Treben recommended only the small-flowered willowherbs and considered E. angustifolium not to be effective, yet it too was marketed from the 1980s. The report finds 4 to 14 per cent of tannins, oenothein B among them, with phenolic acids, sterols, and triterpenes, and found no clinical data from which to draw any conclusion on efficacy.

Rosebay willowherb: what did the older authorities say?

Gerard, as Grieve records

Gerard called it “A goodly and stately plant having leaves like the greatest willow or osier, garnished with brave flowers of great beautie,” and grew plants received from Yorkshire, apparently as a rarity, “which doe grow in my garden very goodly to behold, for the decking up of houses and gardens.” By Grieve’s day it had become more common.