Violets - for the Herbalist in You!
- Margo Lalman, Herbalist
- Jan 23, 2015
- 2 min read
Information for the Herbalist in You...
Taste: sweet, slightly salty - mucilaginous - cool and moist
Tissue Sate: atrophy, stagnation
The leaves and flowers have a sweet, slightly mucilaginous, slightly salty taste and cool impression.
They contain flavonoids, mucilage, salicylates, tannins, essential oils, and alkaloids, saponins, and minerals especially of magnesium and calcium. Avoid the roots and seeds, they contain a substance like emetine, which causes vomiting; hence only the leaves and flowers are used in herbalism.
"Violets have a very mild nature and possess no harmful properties. They are always cold and moist when fresh and green and are used as balm or medicine to cool...heated and afflicted parts of the body; also inflammation of the eyes. Releives the pain of quinsy and is good for the falling sickness in children especially in the earlier states." (Chalid Ottway, 1933, 285)
It has a long history of uses as a cough remedy, especially for bronchitis, and may be of benefit in upper respiratory catarrh. (David Hoffman, 2003, 594) R. Swinburne Clymer (1926, 140) calls it the "shopping cough remedy," a title he bestows on blue vervain root, but adds, "especially when associated with shortness of breath." Make a tea of violet leaves alone, or combine with blue vervain root and black current leaves.
The herbalist Matthew Wood gives further comment on this by stating: "Dorothy Hall (1983, 306) comments on the resemblance between the nodules that form on the roots and runners of violets and the nodules of the lymphatic vessels. 'The medicinal uses of the violet, flowers, leaves and creeping roots, had previously been obscure to me but if the plant cleared lymphatic blockages and renewed normal lymph flow, then the ancient writer's observations made sense.' Dorothy Hall seems to have the same approach I have: if she can see the signature she can understand the properties. She recommends the violet leaf tincture or extract when there is lymphatic stagnation, enlargement of the spleen, and changes in the components of the blood that may foreshadow cancer."
Violet is widely used in cancer. It is one of the few remedies with a proven track record in cancer involving the breast, lymphatics and lungs; as with skin cancer. (Hilde Hemmes)
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