Gather the ripe berries of the wild rose, the hips, and spread them out to mellow in a dry shady place. Make sure they are not piled up on top of each other in the box or basket, otherwise they will go mouldy, rather than overripe. When they are nice and soft, put them through [...]

On the other hand, silica may contribute to the beauty of their feather coats. Our little friends must owe their peace and contentedness, in spite of their lively acrobatics, to the vitamin ? in rose hips, since this vitamin has a calming effect on the nerves. Now you know why rose hip products are also [...]

Not only are the modest but beautiful flowers of the wild rose, so unjustly called Rosa canina or ‘dog rose’, a pleasure to behold, but the fruit too is delightful as it splashes its bright red across the autumn landscape. Where the hips have not been harvested they look, in winter, like little red gnomes [...]

Be careful how you use them, however; too much may irritate the kidneys, and this is easily done if you take the juice or extract. If someone suffers from nephritis or similar kidney conditions, he should take juniper only in homoeopathic doses, Juniperus communis Ix or 2x. For cases of asthma, and particularly the excessive [...]

People who like sauerkraut will be familiar with juniper berries because they are often added for flavouring. But then what do we do? We pick them out and leave them on the side of the plate. Occasionally they are mentioned in a cookery book as a spice, and it may also be remembered by some [...]

The splendid remedy, Crataegisan, is made from the dark red berries, haws, to be found hanging in small bunches from the thorny hawthorn shrubs by the wayside or in the meadows every autumn. When I was a child, my friends and I called them ‘mealy berries’. We children did not know anything about them, except [...]

A raw barberry conserve, made from well-ripened berries, is rich in vitamin ? (ascorbic acid) and other vitamins. However, if copper vessels or utensils are used to cook and strain the conserve, the copper acts as a catalytic agent and destroys most of the vitamin C. Since the vitamin content is mostly lost in cooking, [...]

Roaming through the valleys of the Swiss cantons of Valais and Graubuenden, bright with the autumn sun and a riot of colours, the happy wanderer will find not only hedgerow after hedgerow of wild rose hips, but also many bushes replete with sprays of barberries. Of course, barberries grow in other areas too, but wherever [...]

The plants also used it to aid those who suffered from extreme cold in the hands and feet, whose urine was pale and watery, whose pulse was light or rapid, or whose upper air passages were affected with catarrh. It was found especially helpful in treating the kind of heart trouble that is accompanied by [...]

Along the shores of the Mediterranean, more specifically the blue waters of Greece by the Peloponnesian peninsula, an extraordinary plant is found. It shoots up out of the dry ground on a stem more than a metre (3 feet) high and is crowned with a dense spike of small white flowers. The stem has no [...]