Today I got up early in the morning to go foraging in a field near our house. I found some ribwort plantain and made some tea from it. It actually tastes pretty good! And my hay fever hasn’t acted up since I drank it. Anybody else have some experience with ribwort? On a German page I read that it has stronger medicinal qualities than common plantain, and also does not grow in footsteps. Otherwise the two seem pretty similar.
It is also great on bleeding cuts! Worked really well on my ring finger 
I know all this is common knowledge, but trying it out is so much different from just hearing about it.
Did you use the leaves or flowers ? I might have a go…these grow in my grass .
plantain is one of my favorites.
plantain is a very accessible plant that is good for urinary tract infections (UTI’s) and bladder infections. it’s also great for bee and wasp stings and i use it on all insect/animal/reptile bites in a pinch. it’s #1 when it comes to emergency medicine b/c it is so readily available.
you can use plantago lanceolata and plantago major interchangeably.
I recently put plantain to the test on some wounds I received, and I swear by the stuff now.
- Plantain: This shit is NOT bananas - on my blog
- Plantain - on our REWILD wiki
I haven’t tried a tea before. This late in the year, they lose their tenderness as a salad or pot herb, so a tea sounds like the perfect way to keep enjoying them.
I just used 4 leaves and two cups of water, boiled it all together for a few minutes, then let it sit at lower heat for a while. Then I just took the leaves out and drank it. It definitely improved my throat and digestion.
With the broad leafed kind, you may need less leaves per cup of course.
usually you wouldn’t want to boil leaves in order to make tea. you would want to steep them in water “just off the boil”. decoction (boiling) of tender material like leaves will drive off the volatile oils more quickly than an infusion (steeping in hot [or sometimes cold] water).
but who knows? maybe decocting plantain leaves gets something deeper out of them than an infusion would.
Hm. I thought about that too, but read on some German site that old recipees called for boiling the leaves for a short while and then letting them sit. Next time I’ll just try the regular tea technique though.
then maybe the decocting gets something out of the leaves that infusion alone would not. interesting. does anybody else have experience with plantain teas? (i always get curious when things go off the norm).
Plaintain is one of my favourites too because it’s everywhere I look, and I really do mean everywhere (or maybe I’m just getting good at seeing them). In addition to its medicinal properties it’s nutritionally rich, right up there with the dandelion.
I don’t have any experience with plantain tea, but it’s been on my mind lately. Guess I’ll have to try it this weekend! 
Plantain’s been giving me a lot of love lately. I have some infusing in my teapot right now, in a pot of “backyard tea” that we drink all day. I stepped on a bee last week and it miraculously erased the sting. Also, I found some monster leaves to steam food in–then you can eat the whole package, although it can be a little stringy.
Then you’ve got the seeds. I heard that the psyllium seed husks people take to “keep regular” come from plantain. I just like to nibble on em when I’m hiking, they taste sort of nutty. Or you can just wrap the stem around itself and shoot them at someone. . . 
Used some mashed plantain leaves on poison ivy a while back, definitely relieved the itching and burining some but you have to keep re-applying it a lot, or at least I did.
Plantain is also excellent as a tonic for the mucus membranes (like for allergies as already mentioned) but also great for the whole GI tract where anything needs hardcore healing (esophageal erosion, ulcers etc).
~Kiva Rose
http://animacenter.org
http://medicinewomansroots.blogspot.com
The psyllium husks you buy in the store are from the psyllium plant, Plantago psyllium, the same genus as other plantain species. All plantain seeds can be used as a laxative, though. Just soak the seeds and eat them raw.
The tea is also good for rectal irritation (use externally), kidney and bladder problems, and expelling worms (vermifuge). It can be used as a wash for skin irritation and burns too.
The root powder is said to be good for headaches and toothaches. I’m not sure it will cure the cause of the toothache though.
The poultice can be used for not just bug and animal bites, but reportedly for any kind of blood poisoning, but when trying to treat something serious, make a new poultice every hour. I’ve seen it fail when used on a fiddleback bite, and it caused that person serious problems after a week. I’m not sure if it was due to the way it was used, or if the usefulness of plantain was overstated.
Plantain is very useful for nearly any kind of venomous insect bite/sting. It does work better if it’s a fresh wound rather than an old one.
I have used it for scorpion stings, all kinds of spider bites, infected tick bites and so on with great success. As was pointed out you need to change the poultice fairly frequently. If I need an extra strong remedy I combine with some cresosote bush oil, yarrow leaf or tincture or peach leaf or tincture. And if there’s some kind of allergic reaction, I include Peach leaf and osha tinctures internally as well as chewing up some fresh yarrow leaf if available.
It can work very well for blood poisoning as well, but you must be VERY VERY careful with such conditions as they can become life threatening in a matter of hours. I have seen Plantain clear it up quite quickly, but you should definitely have a backup plan if possible.
Here’s a link to a description of one of my experiences with Plantain http://medicinewomansroots.blogspot.com/2007/05/kiss-your-plantain.html
I just strained and decanted some plantain oil I had been infusing. It smells kind of cheesy–literally like cheese. That doesn’t seem normal. I don’t see any visible mold in the oil, but I also didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to wash the leaves before I poured the oil over them. Does anyone have experience with plantain oil and how it should smell?
Thanks in advance.
Plantain has lots of water content, which can make it difficult to infuse into oil, especially in a humid climate. I don’t recommend washing plant matter before using for medicine at all. A better approach in my mind would be to let the leaves wilt overnight before infusing them in oil.
Or do a warm process infusion, that will also lessen the problem.
You can tell if your oil is off if it’s bubbly or if it burns/tingles when you place it on your tongue (ie wine or beer, fermentation). Plantain oil can smell kinda funny but I’ve never noticed it smelling like cheese before.
What process did you use to make the oil?
What process did you use to make the oil?
I just put the leaves in a mason jar, filled it to the top with oil, and let it sit for 6 weeks, shaking it twice daily (if I remembered to). Here’s my blog post which details the process a little more. The part about the infusion is toward the bottom.
A better approach in my mind would be to let the leaves wilt overnight before infusing them in oil.
So, wilting reduces the water content of the leaves?
How well would dehydrated leaves work for an oil infusion?
You can tell if your oil is off if it's bubbly or if it burns/tingles when you place it on your tongue (ie wine or beer, fermentation). Plantain oil can smell kinda funny but I've never noticed it smelling like cheese before.
I don’t remember bubbles, and I didn’t try tasting it. I’ll do that when I go home for lunch and report back.
I don't remember bubbles, and I didn't try tasting it. I'll do that when I go home for lunch and report back.
No bubbles. No cloudiness. Nothing alcoholic to the taste.
The cheesiness actually smells less intense today than it did when I strained and decanted it. Maybe the plant matter itself lent a lot of the smell. Maybe this is just the way it smells. I’ll watch it for a while to see if any mold develops now that I have strained it.