Meadowsweet - Herbs for Healing Newsletter

Herb of the Month: Meadowsweet Queen of the Meadow

Driving or walking through the narrow country lanes you will notice the tall plants with creamy-white and fluffy flowers. Meadowsweet grows near ditches or streams.

The main stem is angular and reddish, up to 3 feet tall. The scent of the flowers reminiscent of sweet almonds. This is probably the reason why it was used as a popular Elisabethan strewing herb.

For the Druids, meadowsweet was one of the three sacred herbs. In 1652 Nicholas Culpeper wrote it ‘removes the instability and constant change in the
stomach’. Meadowsweet is certainly a herb with a history.

Meadowsweet’s old botanical name used to be Spirea ulmaria, now it is Filipendula ulmaria. There are good reasons why meadowsweet works as a painkiller, a blood thinner and as an antacid. It contains salicylic acid, the principal ingredient in aspirin. In fact, aspirin was originally created
from meadowsweet (A-spirin).

Felix Hoffman who worked for Bayer AG duplicated the chemical form of salicylic acid and added some chemical alterations to invent aspirin in the late 19th century. White willow also contains this substance.

As most people know, aspirin can have quite serious side effects like stomach bleeding and stomach ulceration. This is a potential difficulty with isolating an ‘active ingredient’; A whole plant like meadowsweet contains salicylic acid as well as many other constituents, which have a buffering effect.

It is this buffering effect, which makes the whole plant superior to the isolated substance called aspirin.

Meadowsweet also contains tannins and demulcents, which have an astringent and soothing effect and thus protect the stomach lining.

Meadowsweet is an example of the ‘intelligence of nature,’ working for our benefit. Aspririn (or Salicylic Acid) is isolated from meadowsweet

In Germany meadowsweet is licensed as a standard medicinal tea, approved by the European Commission.