Life everlasting
Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium
Leaf and flower, dried · drying · aromatic
Sweet everlasting — maple-hay in the hand, a scenting herb of the field.
On the nose
How it smells
Sweet, aromatic, maple-syrup or hay when crushed. Strongest when dried, or on a warm day in the field.
More hay & vanillaIn the mouth
How it tastes
Maple-hay if you insist — this is a scenting plant, not a daily pot.
Traditional use
Also called sweet everlasting and rabbit tobacco. Folk houses dried the plant for its maple-hay smell and used it as a scenting and smoke-leaf, not as a kitchen pot. Crush it on a warm day and the cupboard understands.
In the cup
Dry the tops. A sachet, a jar, a crushed pinch to smell. This is not a daily tea.
Blood
Sweet blood · sweet
Sweet first warms, then cools, and it softens. It is relaxing — the reason sugar went into cough syrups — nutritive, building, and hormonally active. Sweet herbs feed the brain and nerves, nourish spleen and pancreas, and coat dry tissue. They cleanse by moving blood toward the organs that wash it.
Read sweet bloodReached for
The promise
A careful hand
A pinch or a rare pot — not a daily habit.
A scenting and smoke-leaf in the old houses — not a beverage. Do not make a heavy pot of it.
Read the whole promiseSits well with
Sweet vernal grass
Anthoxanthum odoratum
The hay that smells of vanilla when the scythe has been through.
Limit the cup
Ground, build, and settle
Woodruff
Galium odoratum
Fresh it is quiet. Dried it is vanilla-hay — the May-wine leaf.
Limit the cup
Ground, build, and settle
Sweet fern
Comptonia peregrina
Not a fern — a spice-bush of the sand, smelling of cinnamon and maple.
Limit the cup
Ground, build, and settle
Traditional kitchen and folk use only. This is not medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If you are pregnant, nursing, on medicine, or unwell, ask a clinician before drinking anything as a remedy.