Outdoor Encounters: June 1, 2017

By Nathan Bolls on June 2, 2017

For many years, beginning in the late 1700s, a young woman or man in the Northern Hemisphere, hoping to increase the magic of that special date, might have applied a drop of “smell-good” that most likely contained some amount of an extract from the white verbena plant.  This verbena, with lemon-scented flowers, a native of western South America, early on became one of the scents frequently used in the formulation of perfumes, colognes, and toilet waters.

   I suppose both members of our hopeful duo were more interested in making their own history than in studying the long medicinal history of the Vervain Family of plants (that includes the verbenas).  Blue verbena is the most important medicinal verbena species in North America; it grows and blooms throughout our prairies, including our own MLH prairie.  American Indians used it to treat coughs, colds, and digestive disorders.  Some tribes boiled the leaves to make a tea.  The Teton Dakotas made a leaf tea for treating stomachaches. The Menominis of the Great Lakes area made a verbena tea to clear up cloudy urine, and the Chippewas used the dried, powdered leaves as a snuff to stop nosebleeds.  Sparrows and finches love the seeds.

A widely-occurring verbena species in Europe was long used medicinally.  Kelly Kindscher, in his Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie, 1992, states that it is from there that “some of the North American folk uses originated.”  The pioneers surely brought with them, or borrowed from the Indians, wisdom concerning the medicinal value of the verbenas.  American Army surgeons, in decades past, when other medicines were not available, used the blue verbena as an effective emetic and expectorant.  Constantine Rafinesque, in his 1830 Medical Flora of the United States, wrote that blue verbena works very well as “an emetic in tea or powder, and to check fevers and incipient phthisis.”  Rafinesque also states that a certain verbena species was the “holy herb of the Greeks and Druids, used as panacea, in incantations and to drive evil spirits.”

An Internet source (date of reference not given) states that “markets in the Mediterranean are heavy with the scent of verbena.”  Let’s hope that our young lovers did not go overboard while attempting to create a pleasing, romantic ambience.  I’m aware that the dating game has undergone many changes since we MLH residents were involved in that pleasant endeavor.  But I assume that, then as now, experiencing emesis on a first date was a decidedly inappropriate way to make a good impression.