# Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

**Achillea*; *millefolium*, “thousand-leaf”*

**Known today as.** *Achillea millefolium*.

Kind: Plant  
Qualities: Drying and binding (Galenic tradition).

## What does modern science say?

Stops minor bleeding and is mildly anti-inflammatory; can cause skin reactions in those sensitive to the daisy family.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **achilleine**: 
- **chamazulene**: in the oil
- **apigenin**: 

**Mechanism.** The flavonoids and the azulene are anti-inflammatory; achilleine shortened bleeding time in animals, which fits the old wound use.

**Dose.** Allergy in those sensitive to the daisy family; the plant photosensitises some.

**Standing.** Approved in Europe as a traditional remedy for the appetite and for small wounds.

## What lore surrounds it?

Its dried stalks were used in China to cast the hexagrams of the *I Ching*.

Yarrow was the favorite plant of love divination in the British Isles. Most commonly it was put under the pillow on May Eve to dream of a future spouse; in County Donegal young people cut a sod where it grew and slept on it in silence, girls in Ulster picked nine leaves reciting a charm to be shown their husband’s face, clothes, and first words, and a Devon version called for yarrow from a young man’s grave, taken at midnight and worn in a stocking while sleeping backward in the bed.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Pliny.** Says Achilles discovered it and healed wounds with it, whence the name *Achillea*.

**Its folk names.** Soldier’s woundwort, staunchweed, nosebleed.

## Sources

- Pliny, *Natural History* XXV.
- Plant-Lore, “Yarrow used in love divination.”
- Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Yarrow.” As published on botanical.com.
- European Medicines Agency (2011). *Assessment report on Achillea millefolium*.

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*Yarrow.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-09-25. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/yarrow

Historical description, not medical advice.