ENTER CODEX

Valerian Root: The Autumn Harvest

Valerian root harvested in autumn from an established plant is one of the most medicinally concentrated materials you can bring into the home apothecary. The plant has spent the growing season building its root reserves, and by October, when the above-ground growth is...

Cinnamon: More Than a Spice

Cinnamomum verum (true or Ceylon cinnamon) has been among the most valued spices in human history, traded across thousands of miles in the ancient world and worth its weight in silver at various points in the medieval spice trade. Cinnamon bark rolled into quills...

Rosehip: The Autumn Berry Most People Walk Past

The hedgerow in October is hung with rosehips in abundance, the bright orange-red fruits of the wild rose that most people walk past without a second glance. This is one of the more significant missed opportunities in the foraging calendar, because rosehips are among...

Holy Basil Through Winter: The Year-Round Adaptogen

Tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum) may have finished in the garden by November, cut down by the first frost, but the jars of dried tulsi on the apothecary shelf and the tincture bottles filled in summer carry the plant’s gifts forward into winter in concentrated,...

Mullein: The Lung Herb of Ancient Standing

Verbascum thapsus is one of the most visually distinctive plants in the British and European landscape: a tall, stately biennial that sends up a rosette of large, woolly grey-green leaves in its first year, then a tall spike of yellow flowers up to two meters high in...

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