ENTER CODEX

California Poppy: The Gentle Sleep and Anxiety Herb

California poppy (Eschscholzia californica) carries a misconception it has been trying to shake since it first became known in herbal circles outside of its California native range. It is not an opium poppy. It has no opioid compounds and no opioid activity. Its...

Yarrow: The Wound Healer of Ancient Battlefields

Achillea millefolium takes its genus name from Achilles, who, according to the myth, was taught by the centaur Chiron to use yarrow on the wounds of soldiers in battle. Whether or not the myth is historically accurate, yarrow pollen has been found in Neanderthal...

Schisandra: The Five-Flavor Berry

Schisandra chinensis (wu wei zi in Chinese, meaning “five-flavor berry”) occupies a unique position in the materia medica because it is almost impossible to describe its taste in conventional terms. It is simultaneously sour, sweet, bitter, salty, and...

Valerian: An Honest Look at the Great Sleep Herb

Valerian (Valeriana officinalis) has been used as a sleep and anxiety herb in European medicine for at least two thousand years. Hippocrates used it. Dioscorides described it in his materia medica. The medieval herbalists relied on it. It is one of the most...

Fennel: The Digestive Herb of Ancient Medicine

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is one of the most continuously used medicinal plants in human history. It appears in the ancient Egyptian Ebers Papyrus (one of the oldest medical documents in existence), in the Greek medical texts of Hippocrates and Dioscorides, in...

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