Words on Wellness: Western Wild Ginger
Always appearing lush and evergreen, even in the driest season, western wild ginger is often overlooked in its favorite forest floor habitat near creeks. You have to get down on your knees when you walk through the redwoods to examine the cozy housing this plant provides for little arthropods and salamanders that frequent its mulch. Wild ginger (Asarum caudatum) is an understory plant that offers beauty with its deeply veined heart-shaped aromatic leaves that carpet the soil. It is under these leaves that they hide their unusual, flowers. The enchantingly mysterious flowers are tiny burgundy orchid-looking gems with a brownish tinge, that bloom from April to July. The flowers smells of dead carrion to attract flies and beetles which pollinate them, as well as ants that are drawn to a fleshy appendage on its seeds that contains oil. After ants dutifully drag an entire seed back to their nest, they remove the oil to feed their young and discard the remainder of the seed, still viable, onto the soil. Large colonies of wild ginger are developed by ants and maintained by the spreading rhizomes of the plant.
The leaves smell like ginger when crushed and their aromatic stems and roots resemble the taste of ginger as well. This plant was used by indigenous peoples, and later pioneers, for cooking, medicine and candy. The leaves can be picked and dried for hot tea and its thin roots dried or tinctured for later use. Like commercial ginger (unrelated to wild ginger), wild ginger makes you perspire, so helps drive-out fever while opening sinuses and lungs. It can also treat intestinal ailments like colic, indigestion and stomach aches and cramps. The wild ginger roots contain antimicrobial agents, active against a broad spectrum of bacteria and fungi and likely one of the reasons it was included in cooking. Pioneers used wild ginger to treat open wounds by chopping it up with plantain leaf. It also served as a poultice for inflammations of the skin. Sometimes the root tea was poured into the ear to relieve ear-ache. The heart-shaped leaf is indicative of its indigenous uses; to bring on menstruation (thus contraindicated in pregnancy) and to regulate irregular heartbeat.
Tis the season for gingery spiced foods and drinks – a great way to stay warm and well, so use liberally!
