St. John’s Wort is flowering like crazy in the Adelaide Hills at the moment. The other day, I went harvesting in the heat and I thought I’d write a little about it for you.
I’ve used Hypericum perforatum for a few years now for things related to our nerves. The petals with their jagged edges, looking almost frayed and those stamen pointing all over the place remind me of nervous conditions frazzled nerves. I like to think of the stamn as reminding me of the nerves in our fingers and toes. This is apt because Hypericum is particularly suited to painful injuries in these nerve-rich areas. An Homeopathic dose of Hypericum, taken instantly after banging fingers with an hammer can bring immediate relief.
The bright uplifting yellow of the flower is what we need when our nerves are frayed and I found when I was out harvesting some, that I could easily differentiate it from the other yellows of the many plants from the Daisy family in flower at the moment.
St. John’s Wort is a flower of the Sun. Most herbs are harvested early in the day, before the sun hits them with its full strength but St. John’s Wort likes to be picked on a warm sunny afternoon. A few days of late have really fit the bill!
It’s an interesting plant in that the oil squeezed from the yellow flowers is a dark red. In my first year of harvesting, my hands looked like I was an actor in Macbeth! I had crushed so many petals with my clumsy technique. This year though, a mild reddening of index finger and thumb was all, as I’d learned how to be a bit more delicate. The bloody red pic below shows how much oil can come from one flower.
The oil turns the alcohol in tinctures and the oil in oils a dark, blood red. It’s quite striking, especially when you consider that it comes from such a bright yellow flower.
St. John’s Wort makes an excellent pain killer for nerve rich body parts, is well known as a plant that can help with depression. I use it in tincture mixes that I prepare for folks who are really feeling down from long term nerve pain, neurasthenia and am trialling it as an oil and a tincture for a friend who is suffering depressed spirits because of shingles.
I prepare both tincture and oil it from wilted fresh leaves. Wilting reduces the water content and helps preserve the oil for longer. It also means that I can use a lower alcohol concentration for tinctures. A ratio of 1:3 at around 60% ABV seems to work beautifully for tinctures and a 1:5 ratio of herb to oil gives good results. .
Have you used St.John’s Wort before? Do you use it now? Please share your personal experiences.
Other herb pages by Ligaya Garden
We cover a lot of ground on many herb related topics here on our website. There are whole pages devoted to different topics as well as frequent posts. Some of the links are –
4 responses to “A little about St.John’s Wort”
That’s fascinating about the colour. Thanks for the photos – I had no idea! Years ago I briefly tried taking StJW tablets for my depression, and stopped after becoming sunburned. It was mid-winter and this side effect took me by surprise.
LikeLike
Thanks for the comment, Alex! Did the SJW help with your depression or didn’t you take it for long enough? It’s pretty quick acting but everyone’s different. The sun sensitivity created in some people by SJW is well documented. I want to write more about it but I’ve never encountered it myself either personally or with folks I’ve given it too. I do know one person who has such an intolerance to it that they get super moody and aggressive when they encounter it in any form. Something deep there…
LikeLike
I didn’t take it for long enough. That intolerance you mention is startling too, wow. Around the time that I tried SJW, I had an unexpected skin reaction to giant hogweed – blisters and scarring. Apparently that was a well documented possibility too, which my horticulture teacher forgot to mention before we all cleared out the previous year’s student plots. I was the only person affected.
LikeLike
Interesting… I don’t know much about Giant Hogweed, we don’t get it this way.
LikeLike