Scullcap and Usnea glycerite??

[RoseRed]

Scullcap should work fine with a glycerite. It works well in alcohol or water. There aren't many plants that only work well with high proof alcohol.

Jim McDonald recommended on Facebook to sit the jar of usnea in your car on a hot summer day. That'll gently heat it enough to begin extracting into very high proof alcohol. You can also decoct (simmer it in water) to get it's immune enhancing properties. To get the anti-bacterial and ant-fungal properties you need high proof alcohol and heat. There is a study on it but I cannot find the link for it.

I've done my usnea in 150proof Everclear. I want to cross the state line and get the 95% alcohol everclear - it's quite a long drive though. It works really well but I want to see the difference between the two. Every time we have wind or rain my oaks gift me with usnea. I'm in the deep south where a golf ball sized ball of usnea is a major find. I have more than I know what to do with.

I would think that with usnea's anti-damn near everything properties that getting microbes wouldn't be too much of a concern. You don't have to strain. So long as the liquid covers the plant material completely you should be fine.

I do understand your wanting the scientific data behind these things. I came across quiet a bit of it in my studies almost 2 years ago. I don't have all the links or resources any more. What I did keep was my own basic understanding of how these things work.

I really think that the American Herbalist Guild Student yahoo group would be an excellent place for these questions. You'll find a lot more answers there. I'm sure you'll also be bombarded with links to studies and such to the things that you're looking for.

I don't know why some people think that just because I recommend a different group that I'm inferring that I don't want them here. (That's just silly - it's not my group - it's SWs and it's certainly not my place to even think that way - which I don't). I'm just simply saying that there are other/better places to get answers to these types of questions. I don't have the answers that you're looking for but the people in that group do and they can and do back it up.

[Bat in the Gloaming]

Thank you again RoseRed.

I am a bit of a luddite...I find something like this site and after I get used to how to navigate it I don't want to go anywhere else. I want to get all my answers here. I'm not handy or adventurous with technology. So after reading your suggestions of other places to get the type of info I'm wanting I realize how I create my own frustration by not being willing to go searching. Thanks for just sharing info and not criticizing or making fun of me.

With what you are saying about heating usnea...what do you think about applying heat to the batch I have? (it was put in glycerin at room temp for 6 weeks starting last Sept. the transferred to the fridge and been in there since. Smells good, is a pale greyish green. Was never anywhere near being orange.)

[RoseRed]

Making fun of you is not something I would ever do. If you could see my Mom with her computer you'd realize that you're doing great!

Unfortunately - we don't have all of your answers here.

And yes - I would try putting the Usnea in the car and heating it for a day. Honestly, tho - I don't think it'll work with glycerite just because of the research I've done on it. Obviously, it's doing something because it's changing color but that's one specific herb that needs something stronger. But then again I could be wrong.

Anyways - here's the link to the yahoo group http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/herbstudent/

If you don't have a yahoo ID it's free to make one and you'll need it to join. It's an email list (I have my settings set to digest instead of individual messages) or you can read it at the group itself. I don't personally care much for yahoo groups BUT the information there is amazing!

Here's a list of really great places to get started with your research - just google their names and you'll find their websites:

A truly excellent place to begin is Jim McDonald's Master List of Articles. He's an respected herbalist that's studied with 'true' master herbalists - those who have devoted their lives to this and studied under master's themselves instead of just taking a couple expensive online courses. One of the best things about the List of Articles is that he only links to other herbalists that he respects. It's an excellent resource. http://www.herbcraft.org/articleindex.html

Or Susun Weeds Master Article List - http://www.susunweed.com/Articles_Susun_Weed.htm

Mountain Rose Herbs also has profile for each product that they sell - http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/learn/ ... powder.php

If you want to start your research online or at the bookstore - here are some names of respected herbalists to get you started (in no particular order):

Susun Weed
Kiva Rose
Jim McDonald
Matthew Wood
Michael Moore
Christopher Hobbs
Paul Bergner
Henriette Kress
7song

You could also join the American Herbalist Guild Student yahoo group or Henriette's Herblist.

7Song is an herbalist from Maine. You can follow him (Sevensong Sevensong), Kiva or Jim on facebook.

You could also check out the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism school run by Paul Bergner http://naimh.com/

[sapphire kate]

I love the taste of usnea tincture. Tea is pretty bitter though, so that tells us something about the differences between what water and alcohol extract. I'd love to know what the glycerite tastes like. That's very interesting Rose about native use as a spit poultice. I've used it fresh for a gum infection.

I only got tincture to go orange with the heating method. Can you heat glycerine? If so then you could heat your glycerite. If there are bacterial issues, maybe do it in a water bath so you get a high heat, although it is hard to imagine bacteria growing in a usnea preparation (I don't know glycerine though).

Re usnea's actions, I've used usnea cold tincture with bacterial infections and found it effective. It's definitely not as potent as the hot tincture, but that's ok. Stephen Harrod Buhner says the heat activates the immune stimulating properties, but this isn't necessary for the anti-bacterial ones.

I was wondering if it's medicinal constituents are the kind that only extract via alcohol then it seems a waste of time to try extracting it via glycerin[/color]. That is my main impetus for asking questions about it, and my curiosity in general about other herbs.

I don't think it is as black and white as that, and it really depends on what you are wanting. I hope jim doesn't mind, but I'm posting this email of his from the Herblist

sharon's answer was spot on - especially this part:

There is no Right or Wrong Way. First we learn to do it as our teacher shows
us, and then as we gain experience and wisdom, we begin to develop our own
techniques and refinements.

I'm a definite advocate of thinking creatively about herbs and
medicine making; if you have an idea about an herb or how to prepare
something, try it out. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, but you'll
learn fro the experience.

Also wanted to thicken the plot a bit, regarding solubility as its
applied in medicine making....

When considering what solvent/menstrum to use in making a preparation,
whether an herb is soluble in it (will dissolve into it) is very
useful, but also kind of misleading, because often preparations ~do~
contain constituents that aren't soluble in the menstrum used. A
great example is inulin in a burdock tincture. Inulin is only
slightly soluble in alcohol, but it is extracted by the alcohol and is
miscible* in it - the inulin is in the tincture, but left to sit will
settle out as a seperate substance in the tincture... so you shake
your burdock tincture, and its cloudy muddy brown, but if you let it
sit, the inulin portion settles to the bottom of the jar more like a
milky layer than a layer of sediment. You could filter this through a
coffee filter and get nothing, because its not a sediment. I've made
burdock tinctures where a third of the resting bottle was settled
inulin, which demonstrates that the "slightly soluble" label does
~not~ mean that a tincture won't be ~very~ rich in inulin.

Another good example is the fixed oil in flax seeds. If you make an
infusion with them, you end up with a tea rich in mucilage (certainly
soluble in water) and fixed oils (not soluble in water). This is
because even though the oil isn't really ~dissolved~ in the hot water,
it's separated from the seeds by it, and will remain in the tea when
you've filtered out the spent flax seed. Same goes for sunflower seed
tea (a good sebacious diaphoretic).

You can even see the film of oil at the top of the water in the tea
cup. This even applies in something as simple as lavender tea - the
essential oil in lavender flowers is insoluble in water. But clearly,
pouring hot water over a volatile oil will cause it to be released
from the plant material into the water, where it them rises in the
steam (if it didn't, we wouldn't smell it). And because we can tastes
it in the tea, we know its i the water, too, soluble or not.

Tincture's don't extract mucilage, and yet many mucilaginous tinctures
will have a moistening effect on mucous membranes. I would state that
in the GI tract, where the actual physical mucilage comes into contact
with tissues, water preps are certainly better, while when treating
respiratory/urinary tissues, where actual physical mucilage doesn't
get too anyway, tinctures can be notably moistening (good example here
would be cornsilk tincture).

Another example would be that a tincture of horsetail, which contains
little silica (not soluble in alcohol) still seems to have effect that
correlate with what silica does. Henriette calls the phenomenon
"plants don't read books".

This is all not to say that understanding solubility/solvency isn't
important, because i do think it is quite important (and for the
record I frequently say that it makes no sense to try to extract
propolis in water, because its just won't extract it), but that we
need to look deeper into our herbs and our preparations of them than
into what books say is so. Charts that say this this and this kind of
constituent is soluble in this this and this kind of menstrum/solvent
are helpful and insightful, but if you don't go deeper than a chart
they end up being misleading. Its akin to energetics - you can see a
chart that says an herb is hot dry cold damp or whatever, but the
application of those ideas is more complicated than those simple terms
(if it wasn't, people wouldn't eat chilis in the tropics).

So, just remember that nature is always more expansive than any of the
ways we try to catagorize it.
--
jim mcdonald
~herbalist~
www.herbcraft.org
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Herb mailing list
Herb@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/herb

[sapphire kate]

There are indigenous cultures that would chew (and chew and chew) and make a spit poultice out of it to prevent or treat infection. I'm assuming that something in the saliva breaks it down into usefulness.

Rose do you have a source for that? Buhner talks about the need to mechanically break the outer sheath when making tinctures (and maybe tea?). I did this by hand once, it was very tedious as the outer sheath is quite hard. I'm not so sure now how necessary that is - the usnea where I live now is very brittle on the outside.

[RoseRed]

Of course, I can't find it now. I don't know about the other entries on this site but the usnea page a compilation of the different things I found online. http://www.innvista.com/health/herbs/usnea.htm I was really big into watching videos then too.

I've never had a problem with the outer portion being difficult to work with. So long as it's dry it'll crumble right off. The part I have a problem with is the inner core - it gets all tangled up in food processor blades. Somewhere along the line I picked up a trick about using scissors to break it down and it works really well.

I haven't heated my unsea tinctures - what I did was crochet my canning jar cover and leave it in a south facing windowsill. The heat from the sun beating on it (covered so the light didn't break anything down) turned it to a gorgeous orange. I remember reading that it's supposed to turn orange and not really believing it. It was so grey/green - how could it ever turn? But it does.

Skate - isn't that so funny how different people enjoy the tastes of different things.

[RoseRed]

I just wanted to mention with regards to my lack of links and stuff - I did enough research to satisfy myself that what I was doing would not harm or hurt my family. I didn't save everything that I found or read. I didn't feel the need to for myself. That doesn't mean that you need to take my word anything. You can use it as a start off point to start your own research.

Have you tried typing usnea into the search bar in the top right corner? There's a lot of info about it here.

[Bat in the Gloaming]

SK and R, Thank you for all the thoughtful information. I would like to think it over. Right now I'm focused in the garden doing a lot of scything and compost building and don't have as much time for research/inside stuff at the computer etc. Loved the stuff SK put from Jim M. I wish I could take some classes from him but he lives pretty far away. While reading the long excerpt of his, I did find myself still wanting to see those charts he referred to that say which constituents are extracted by which solvents. That's exactly what I've been wanting. Even though I also agree with the gist of everything else he was saying. Why not have it all?...the charts AND the deeper paradoxical stuff too. SK, do you have a link to where you got that quote from Jim M.? I saw the link to his site but it just goes to his main page.

I will try doing a search again for usnea here at this forum. I'm sure I've done it before but I don't have a good memory for details.

I was also wondering about reposting this stuff about usnea on a different thread since this one started out about skullcap. Do you think?

Angela

[RoseRed]

I would just go to your first post, click edit and change it to 'scullcap and usnea glycerite'.

The best place to ask Jim M these questions is either on Henriette's Herblist or the AGH Student Yahoo Group. He's very active on both. Although, I wouldn't specifically ask JUST him these questions. There are many respected herbalists that can help you with the information that you're looking for. I see no reason to limit yourself to just one.