Written by Grace Rector
We recently discovered a plant that has been growing on the farm known as agrimony. Now, I’m sure you’re wondering, what makes this plant so special that it gets a whole blog dedicated to it? Well, let me tell you, this plant discovery didn’t happen in the most favorable circumstances. A couple months back, we found Ralph, one of our more adventurous alpacas, with a bunch of plant burs in his fiber. This was not ideal as we harvest their fiber every year for yarn, clothing, and various other products. After spending a couple hours “de-burring” Ralph by hand, we notice that Scully and Hotline have burs in their fiber too! After getting as many burs out of those three as we could, Whitney decided to follow them and see if she could find the culprit, and voila! It turns out to be agrimony.
While we are not a fan of agrimony growing in our pasture, we did find that it is quite the useful herb with an interesting history. Agrimony, or Agrimonia Eupatoria, can be identified by its long, fuzzy stem that grows tightly clustered yellow flowers with a leafy base. The burs that we found in the alpaca’s fiber can be seen in the photo to the right at the top of the flowering stem.
Throughout centuries, maybe even millenia, Agrimony has been used for a variety of physical ailments, and it has an exciting history born from both tradition and folklore. The term Agrimony actually comes from the Greek word Argemone, which means “cataracts.” It is believed that the Greeks used agrimony to heal ailments of the eye, but it is not certain. The Anglo-Saxons referred to agrimony as garclive and used it for healing wounds, snake bites, and the occasional wart. In Oriental Medicine, the herb was used at one point to treat menstrual challenges due to its coagulatory and anti-inflammatory properties. It was also wielded on battlefields in the Middle Ages to staunch the bleeding from flesh and gunshot wounds. I’ve found its most popular use across cultures to be its ability to improve digestive function, especially ailments of the liver.
The above history of agrimony stems from tradition and science, but I believe the folklore of herb to be just as intriguing. For example, the French dried the flowers and used them in a tonic to purify their blood. Among Pagans, it is said that if you place the plant’s leaves under your pillow, you will sleep like the dead. This is still a popular sleep remedy among some cultures. One of my most bizarre findings was a record of agrimony being mixed with pounded frogs and human blood to help stop internal bleeding. I do wonder how they came to that conclusion.
The more I research, the more I find that Agrimony has quite the impressive resumé, and I see why some have called it a “cure-all.” My favorite and unexpected finding was the use of agrimony in assistance with ailments of the mind. Dr. Edward Bach, a revolutionary holistic doctor and homeopathic practitioner from the early 20th century, would add agrimony to his remedies for people who were struggling with anxiety and depression. The Roman naturalist, Pliny the Elder, referred to agrimony as “an herb of princely authorite,” and I can’t help but agree. With such an expansive history and variety of uses, I have to deem agrimony a friend, just not in our pastures. That brings me to the most important lesson we learned from our encounter with Agrimony: Tame your pastures, not your animals.
