Words on Wellness • "Old Man's Beard"
March is a month known for its strong winds and hopefully rain here on the north coast. It also heralds a time of respiratory re-infections and allergies due to pollen, molds and burn piles. Yet as always, nature drops clues to engender wellness and grey-green Usnea lichen is one literally dropped from the trees in high winds. Sometimes called Old Man’s Beard, usnea is a common northern forest lichen. It tends to grow as hanging aerial tufts or long gossamers on the dead lower branches of living trees, including fruit trees. Like all lichens, usnea is a symbiotic pairing of a fungus with an algae. When you pull it apart, you can see the inner core of white fungus surrounded the chlorophyll-rich algae.
Various Usnea species have been used as medicine in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America for thousands of years. There are about four common species here in the western states. Its natural sponginess was applied as padding for wounds, skin inflammations, diapers and menstrual pads and it was disinfecting at the same time.
Usnea is among our best herbal antibiotics against gram positive bacteria, particularly Streptococcus, Staphylococcus and tuberculosis, plus it’s effective at killing many types of fungal infections, including Candida. Research has shown this is mostly due to usnic acids that also work well to resolve trichomonas (a parasite), some auto-immune conditions like lupus, urinary tract infections including cystitis, and upper respiratory infections like bronchitis and pneumonia.
Fresh air, good rainfall and fog are requirements for long strands of this slow-growing lichen. It’s best to collect freshly fallen healthy (still spongy and green) strands. Usnea is not very water soluble so must be simmered for thirty minutes to make tea. It tends to be bitter and cooling, so add licorice root and ginger root to sweeten and warm it up. You can drink three cups of this decoction a day for treating upper respiratory infections and this same recipe can be used for bladder infections. A tincture is made by short-heating usnea in water first and then using strong alcohol to extract it.
Traditional cultures applied it more commonly as a topical medicine by soaking or slow cooking it in warm oil for use in ointments, skin creams and vaginal inserts. We are fortunate to receive this gift of wind and trees.
