HERB - "Violets are blue....."

[Sheron Buchele/Curtis Rowland]

At 07:40 PM 4/27/99 EDT, you wrote:
>Seeing as it's spring, and they're popping up EVERYwhere....a question about 
>blue violets.
>However....out of sheer caution....the delicate little blooms that are 
>scattered all over my backyard.  Are those Viola odorata ?   Before I go
nuts 
>picking them, making cough syrup out of them, and drying them for tea......I 
>just want to be sure I'm not wasting my time.  (Or risking poisoning myself!)

Look to the leaves, my Lady!  The Common Violet has a leaf shape which
reminds me of a heart.  The leaves go into stem which goes into a thick
tuber like thing from which the roots spring.  The flower stalks also go
into the tuber-ish sort of thing.  I have read that the violet in the US
are not a sweetly scented as the ones in "the old country".   But I have
eaten many of the common violets and also use the leaves medicinally.

The Viola or Jonny-Jump-Up has oval shaped leaves with a lovely scolloping.
 The flowers and the leaves come of a main stalk which goes into the
ground.  The roots are fiberous (without tuber or rhizhome).  It also has
many wonderful medicinal uses.  I use it in the lip balm that I make.

When ever wildcrafting, remember that the plants that you take are habitat
and food to the fauna of the area.  Be kind and only take what you will use
and can process sucessfully.  One of the worst feelings in the world is to
open up what once was a wonderful healing herb and find only a bag of moldy
compost because I was too tired after picking to process right away!

>
>(On the same note.....will wild black raspberry leaves have the same
soothing 
>effects in tea as red will?)
>

I was just reading about this yesterday and according to the "Earth to
Herbalist" book - which is a wonderful book for wildcrafting and making
tinctures, yes.

Baroness Leonora
Outlands

Fox Ryde Gardens - Herbal Innovations for Health and Cuisine
7743 West First Street
Loveland, CO 80537
970/669-3835
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