Wildly Weedy Herbs

Modern weeds that were used as herbs in the pre-1601 period: a sampling. Period uses for plants that now grow wild in North America; lawn weeds, hedgerows, roadsides, parks, waste places.

	Bedstraw and cleavers (Galium Sp.) - Cheese rennet, dyeplants, food		Catnip ( Nepeta cataria ) vs. Calamint (Calamintha nepeta)
	Common Chickweed (Stellaria Media		Chicory ( Cichorium intybus ) -- cooked and salad green (endive, chicory)
	Dandelion ( Taraxacum officinale) diuretic, food		Ground Ivy/Alehoof/ Gill over ground(Glechoma hederacea ) Beer herb (gruit)
	Johnny-jump-ups / Wild Pansies (Viola Tricolor) Food		Lambsquarters, Fat Hen, Pigweed and other Goosefoots (Chenopodium album et al) Food. May have been called Blites, but that could be Amaranth.
	Mint (Mentha species) Medical (cooling for fevers, stomach soothing), food, strewing herb
	White Mustard ( Sinapis alba ) Food/spice		Common or Great Mullein (Verbascum thapsus) Hedge Taper, used for lung illnesss, also as a bumwipe.
	Nettles ( Urtica dioica ) Food, cloth, and counter-irritant medicine, spring tonic		Plantain (Plantago major, Plantago lanceolata) Demulcent herb for bruises, blisters. Seeds are laxative. Food
	Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) Food		Roses (Rosa sp. especially Rosa Canina and Rosa Gallica) Food, medicine, strewing herb, scents
	Tansy ( Tanacetum vulgare ) Used in egg dishes in period-- currently NOT RECOMMENDED for internal use. Reputed to drive away flies. Strewing herb. Good dried flower.		Teasel ( Dipsacus fullonum) : used by fullers to ‘tease' woolen fabric
	Violets (viola) Decorative, strewing herbs, food, medicine, scent		Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) Wound herb

(Most illustrations in this handout are from: Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. Illustrated flora of the northern states and Canada .)

Resources on weeds:

Ballerini, Luigi. A Feast of Weeds: A Literary Guide to Foraging and Cooking Wild Edible Plants. University of California Press, 2012.
Culpeper, Nicolas. The Complete Herbal: Consisting of a Comprhensive Description of Nearly All Herbs with Their Medicinal Properties and Directions for Their Medicinal Properties and Directions for Compounding the Medicines Extracted from Them. London: W. Foulsham.
Department of Agriculture, U.S. USDA PLANTS Database. Accessed August 4, 2016. https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/
Elias, Thomas S., and Peter A. Dykeman. Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide. Sterling Pub. Co, 1990.
Foster, Steven, James A Duke, and Roger Tory Peterson. Peterson Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs Of Eastern and Central North America. Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
Gerard, John, and Thomas Johnson. The Herbal: Or, General History of Plants. Dover Publications, 1975.
Gibbons, Euell. Stalking the Healthful Herbs. D. McKay Co, 1966.
Gibbons, Euell. Stalking the Wild Asparagus. New York: D. McKay Co, 1962.
Hill, Thomas, and Richard Mabey. The Gardener's Labyrinth. Oxford University Press, 1987.
Hitchcock, Susan Tyler. Gather Ye Wild Things: A Forager's Year. Harper & Row, 1980.
Hitchcock, Susan Tyler. Wildflowers on the Windowsill: A Guide to Growing Wild Plants Indoors. Crown Publishers, 1984.
Jones, Pamela. Just Weeds: History, Myths, and Uses. Chapters Pub., 1994.
Mabey, Richard. Weeds: How Vagabond Plants Gatecrashed Civilisation and Changed the Way We Think about Nature. Profile Books, 2010. (Dry!)
Martin, Alexander C. Weeds. New York: Golden Press, 1972.
Meuninck, Jim. The Basic Essentials of Edible Wild Plants & Useful Herbs. ICS Books, 1988.
Peterson, Lee, and Roger Tory Peterson. A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Eastern and Central North America. Houghton Mifflin, 1978.
Pond, Barbara, Edward Norman, and Marcia Gaylord Norman. A Sampler of Wayside Herbs: Rediscovering Old Uses for Familiar Wild Plants. Greenwich House, 1982.
Ryder, Michael. "Fascinating Fullonum." Circaea. vol. 11, issue 1. p 23-31. https://envarch.net/circaea
Thayer, Samuel. The Forager’s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants. Forager’s Harvest, 2006. (Midwestern)
Cornel Weed ID. Accessed August 2025. https://blogs.cornell.edu/weedid/
Zachos, Ellen. Backyard Foraging: 65 Familiar Plants You Didn’t Know You Could Eat, 2013.

Notes from a class in the SCA taught by Jadwiga Zajaczkowa. Copyright Jennifer Heise, jenne.heise@gmail.com 2005-2025.
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