chickweed

Oh sweet, stellaria media.

If you have met this plant, you may understand my admiration. And if you have yet to meet them, well I am excited to chat them up to you before your first introductions.

Chickweed is an unexpectedly medicinal weed that pops up all around yards and disrupted soil.

This plant get its name “stellaria” from the meaning star. We can see why, when we admire those tiny white star- like flowers.

These flowers have 5 petals that are so deeply lobed they appear as 10. But look closely at each petal and you will see they connect at the bottom.

Not only do these plants have precious star-like petals but they have this characteristic that really makes them the rockstar of weeds. They have this distinct mohawk of hairs along the stem. It runs directly along the central stem and when the stem connects to a leaf node, the mohawk alternates to the other side of the central stem.

Hold a piece of chickweed into the sun and see that rockin’ mohawk glowing right back at you. It’s pretty punk rock.

I think it is very common for a certain plant to get most popularly known for a specific use. What I am talking about here goes beyond the traditional uses, and enters a bit of the plant trend world.

But when you know this you can look outside of the mainstream uses for herbs by getting to know them.

And by getting to know their energetics. So when you hear that chickweed is great in salads, you can ask more questions like-why?

Is this herb bitter, cooling, are they moistening or drying? And once you begin to answer some of your questions you can make deeper inquiries.

Like, if chickweed is cooling and moistening internally, might it also support dry irritated skin?

So, this wormhole is exactly the one I went down with chickweed when looking at what medicinal weeds were in the yard,.

And when I began to ask more questions and do my research I found recipes of people using chickweed in salves for conditions like psoriasis.

I instantly knew what type of medicine this plant that wanted to be.

So I harvested honorably, not taking more than half.

Even though this chickweed popped up in a potted plant, it is important to respect the honorable harvest.

Because plants like chickweed are annual and will not simply grow back in the same place. They are dependent on the dispersal of their seeds. And in order for that to happen there needs to be flowers left after a harvest.

So now, on one of the shelves in my apothecary I have a huge jar of stellaria media, freshly dried and waiting to become a spring salve for dry irritated skin.

I love how wise nature is. I am always led to the plants and their medicine like this. I wait for them to show themselves to me and reveal their medicine.

They speak with the seasons, and often the season before tells the medicine for the next.

Chickweed Herbal Energetics:

Family: Caryophyllaceae

Native habitat: Europe, Asia, North Africa

North America native: Cerastium arvense (field chickweed)

Parts Used: leaves, stems, flowers

Identification: 

1. Leaves:

• Small oval leaves with pointed tip

• Opposite along stem

• Smooth

• Up to ½ inch long

• Light green

• Lower leaves have petioles or stalks where upper leaves do not

2. Stems:

• Soft hairs like a mohawk along one side of the stem

• At each pair of leaves the line of hairs switches side of stem

3. Flowers

• Deeply lobed petals 

• 5 petals that appear as 10 due to depth of the lobes

• Star like-where the plant gets their name

• White to light green in color range

4. Roots:

• Close to the ground and easy to pull up except one tap root which is thin but has rootlets growing from it 

Notes:

• Said to be great in topical uses like an infused oil

• Supports dry, irritated, and itchy skin

• Used as a replacement for cortisone cream

• Laxative effect when used in larger quantities

• bitter herb for salads in small quantities

Tastes: mild/sweet

Herbal Energetics: moistening, cooling, relaxant 

Herbal Actions: 

• Demulcent, emollient, nutrative, lymphatic, diuretic, vulnerary

Tissue State Indications:

• dry/atrophy

• heat/excitation

• damp/stagnation

Please be sure to always use multiple sources when identifying and wild harvesting medicinal plants.

Disclaimer: These articles are for educational purposes only, they are not a substitution for professional medical advice, and as the reader you are responsible for your own health decisions.