Violet
Viola odorata
Leaf and flower · cooling · moistening
The heart-leaf of spring — a cool green for lymph and dry heat.
On the nose
How it smells
Sweet, powdery, a delicate floral with a soft fruity or green note. It seems to vanish as you smell it — the nose tires of ionones, then comes back.
More petalIn the mouth
How it tastes
Leaf is green and mild; flower is a faint sweet perfume in the cup.
Traditional use
Leaf as food and tea, flower as a sweet. Folk practice used violet when the chest was dry or the glands busy, a gentle water plant of the yard.
In the cup
A handful of fresh leaves steeped 10 minutes, or chopped into salad. Flowers in vinegar or honey.
Blood
Salty blood · salt
Salt is cooling and barely a taste. These plants dry first, then move fluid — and water follows. They are mineral salts, not table salt: building, coating to sensitive membranes, thinning stuck mucous, supporting kidneys and the kreb-cycle minerals of muscle and nerve.
Read salty bloodReached for
Who it feeds
The living bloom
Variegated Fritillary, Diana Fritillary, Great Spangled Fritillary, Meadow Fritillary
The promise
A careful hand
Ordinary tea for a healthy adult.
Common blue and sweet violets are the tea plants. Skip houseplant violets — different family.
Read the whole promiseSits well with
Red clover
Trifolium pratense
The meadow blossom in the old blood-and-skin jars.
Irritable skin · Hollow energy · Cough
Warm, move, and stimulate
Marshmallow
Althaea officinalis
The original marsh mallow — a slick coat for dry tissue.
Sore throat · Cough · Dryness
Mineralize, soothe, and restore fluid
Chickweed
Stellaria media
The cool spring mat — a water green for hot, dry, itchy skin.
Irritable skin · Dryness · Hollow energy
Mineralize, soothe, and restore fluid
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.