Herb Garden: Goldenseal

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Goldenseal can be a handsome houseplant.

GOLDENSEAL

Foragers almost exterminated goldenseal.

Lately, more and more people have begun to understand just how limited—in both variety and nutritional value—our “modern” diets have become. This realization has sparked a new and wide-spread interest in the culinary and therapeutic uses of herbs…those plants which—although not well-known today—were, just one short generation ago, honored “guests” on the dinner tables and in the medicine chests of our grandparents’ homes. In this regular feature, MOTHER will examine the availability, cultivation, and benefits of our “forgotten” vegetable foods and remedies… and—we hope—help prevent the loss of still another bit of ancestral lore.

A handsome perennial, gold-enseal ( Hydrastis Canadensis ) is native to cool, shaded woodlands in the eastern United States . . . particularly the rich, well-drained highlands of Appalachia. It grows from 6 to 12 inches tall, with a single main leaf and two secondary leaves of five to seven lobes each. As the leaf stems die back, they mark the fleshy, yellow rhizome (rootstock) with scars that resemble seals and give the plant its name.

Each stem is graced by a solitary greenish white flower in May or June, followed by a rasp-berrylike aggregate fruit that's about half an inch in diameter. Each one of a berry's small "globes" contains two or three hard, black, shiny seeds about the size of buckwheat grains. The plant's rhizome—usually about three-quarters of an inch thick and two inches long, with a profusion of long yellow rootlets—is, when dried, the part most often used in medicinal preparations.

Goldenseal has an acrid, bitter taste and a disagreeable odor, but its purported uses are so varied that it has been called "the universal herb" for over 300 years. The powdered rootstock— considered a general tonic for the mucous membranes—can be applied as a snuff or an antiseptic dust ... in washes and infusions ... or in capsule form. In combination with other herbs, goldenseal has been used—at various times and, we must assume, with varying degrees of effectiveness—to treat ulcers, sinus conditions, dyspepsia, worms, bowel irregularity, gonorrhea, prostate and vaginal infections, and morning sickness . . . among other problems.