A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Prunella vulgaris
A low growing wildflower ( 5-30 cm tall). The club like flower is squarish in shape and are two lipped and tubular. The top lip is a purple hood, and the bottom lip is often white. The leaves are lance like which form a collar just beneath the flower.
Spotted at the Mima Mounds Preserve - an open prairie next to a woodland edge.
Heal-all is edible, and can be used in salads, soups, stews, and boiled as a pot herb. The Cherokee cooked and ate the young leaves. The Nlaka'pamux drank a cold infusion of the whole plant as a common beverage. The plant contains vitamins A, C, and K, as well as flavonoids and rutin. Topically, a poultice of the plant is applied to irritated skin, as a disinfecting agent and to pack wounds in the absence of other wound-care material. It is considered by the Chinese to "change the course of a chronic disease". (wikipedia).
No Comments