Plantain
by Gudrun Maybaum and Lee McGuire
May 2001
Common Name: Common Plantain
History
In most of North America, common plantain is considered a weed and a scourge that needs to be cleared from farmlands and along the edges of grassy city lawns. Holistic practitioners, on the other hand, consider plantain a very versatile medicine. This little perennial plant that is today considered a weed, has a long history, first being used by Greek and Roman physicians - why even Shakespeare recommended this curative for skin injuries in “Romeo and Juliet.” When Europeans started to colonize North America, they brought with them the seeds of plantain stuck to their boots and wagon wheels, which is one reason that the plant is commonly called “White Man’s Foot” or “Englishman’s Foot” among Native Americans - although among some botanists there appears to be some dissension as to whether or not the plant is a native species. This is because many Native American tribes have remedies based on plantain, either used alone or in combination with other herbs. This plant with the foot-like leaves has many names in different languages and has found its place with holistic practitioners from North America to Europe to the Far East 1,2,6
What properties does plantain have which would entail such widespread use? It has anti-histamine, anti-bacterial, anti-allergy, blood toning, lymphatic, anti-hemorrhagic, diuretic, expectorant, demulcent, astringent and antacid (tea) actions in humans. The active ingredients include: tannins, mucilage, and silicic acid, Vitamin C, bacteriostatic chemicals, glycoside aucubin (some activities of this phytochemical include performing as an antioxidant, a bactericide, a cathartic, a diuretic and providing hepatoprotective properties), flavinoids and saponins. Some of the therapeutic properties led one company to marketing a plantain-based product as a stop-smoking aid (definitely a benefit to any bird within inhaling range of the tobacco weed). 8 Plantain leaves are also a natural alternative to allopathic medicine for those pesky insect bites that we all seem to get each summer.
How can this be translated to our parrot friends? As you will see below in the case study, and as we all know, bites from our feathered friends are not unknown and can sometimes be painful. Fortunately, plantain plants are readily available and a leaf simmered for 10-15 minutes in water and wrapped around the finger will reduce the pain while speeding up the healing process and reducing scar formation. Plantain is a rich source of Vitamin C, potassium, magnesium, and phosphorus and has a cooked taste that has been compared to what cabbage and spinach would taste like if combined. As a salad herb, it is fresher than anything you would find in the grocery store since you can go out and pick it yourself for immediate use. Birds relish the seeds and the ripe spikes are collected for cage birds in Europe.6
Treat plantain as you would any other salad vegetable collected from the garden - wash thoroughly with copious amounts of fresh potable running water before using. Choose only unblemished leaves and stalks that are green, unwilted and have no yellow on them.
Plant Description: A perennial plant with broad, blunt, ovate, stalked leaves, formed from a basal rosette with a few densely-flowered spikes. The root is a very short rhizome, which bears a great number of long, straight; yellowish roots while the densely-flowered spikes are long and slender.
The blade is 4 to 10 inches long and about two-thirds as broad, usually smooth, thick, five to eleven ribbed, the ribs having a strongly fibrous structure, the margin entire, or coarsely and unevenly toothed. The flower-spikes, erect, on long stalks, are as long as the leaves, 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick and usually blunt. The flowers are somewhat purplish-green, the calyx is four parted, the small corolla bell-shaped and four-lobed, the stamens four, with purple anthers. The fruit is a two-celled capsule, containing four to sixteen seeds. If you are going to collect the plant yourself, care must be taken during the collection period to ensure that you are collecting plantain and not foxglove, as the two plants resemble one another during the spring.1,2,4,6
If you plan on collecting your own herbs, it is recommended that you obtain a very good guide book which will help with plant identification or tag along with someone experienced in collecting herbs. Please ensure that you are collecting from areas and sites that have not been treated with chemicals such as pesticides or fertilizers. Roadsides are not good places for herb collection since car exhaust may build up in herbaceous plants. Public paths and walkways are frequently treated with pesticides and fertilizers. Better yet, grow your own plantain from seeds collected – the seeds will remain viable for up to 60 years in the soil and require light to germinate.9
Remember, you are responsible for what your bird eats and it is incumbent on you to always err on the side of safety.
Collection Time:
May to August or September (depending on your area)
Synonyms:
Broad-leaved Plantain, Ripple Grass or Rippleseed plantain, Waybread, Slan-lus, Dooryard plantain, Birdseed plantain, Snakeweed, Cuckoo's Bread, Englishman's Foot, White Man's Foot, Major plantain.
Parts Used:
Root, leaves, flower-spikes, seeds, dried leaves
Case Histories:
Plantain and its practical use:
About seven years ago, Gudrun got "Captain," a huge Moluccan Cockatoo. He had had the run of his former house for the first nine years of his life, and showed his displeasure with the change in homes by a little "nip” on her finger. With his huge beak, these little nips occasionally drew blood. Gudrun says “On one occasion he bit the tip of my pointing finger, it really hurt because this particular spot has lots of nerve endings. Fortunately, we were surrounded by plantain plants that were easily collected. I simmered a leaf for 10-15 minutes in water and wrapped it around my finger. Within five minutes, the pain was gone. Another of plantain's advantages is that it really speeds up the healing process and leaves almost no scars.”
Last year Gudrun took in a self-mutilating Quaker. “The whole right side of his body, leg and shoulder were open and bloody. I simmered some plantain leaves, washed him with the tea, put the leaves all over his open body parts, wrapped Coflex all around him and left it on him for 24 hours. When I removed the leaves, the flesh looked rosy and was visibly healing “
About three years ago, Gudrun adopted a Greenwing Macaw with a history of crop infections. These crop infections had always previously been treated with antibiotics. One nice day, "Biggi" was choking, vomiting and had slimy stuff all over her head. Gudrun immediately made a tea from plantain leaves, mixed in some slippery elm and slowly fed it to Biggi little by little. She was fine within hours and never had another crop infection.
The above are just a few examples of the ways in which plantain may be used internally and externally to heal, but the best way to go is to add it to the birds' food regularly. Gudrun uses fresh leaves, pureed with other vegetables for a morning mash or sprinkles dried leaves over mash or sprouted seeds – when the plant is out of season. She also makes a tea and gives it to her birds in their drinking water. A stem of plantain seed given to one of our birds makes a great foot toy as well as a nutritious treat for them. Gudrun is one of the few people who wishes she had more plantain in her yard.
References:
1. Medicine of the Earth; Fischer-Rizzi, Susanne; Rudra Press, Portland Oregon; translated by Meret Liebenstein Bainbridge; 1996
2. Bartrams Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine; Bartram, Thomas, Robinson Publishing Ltd.; U.K. 1998
3. Beckstrom-Sternberg, Stephen M., James A. Duke, and K.K. Wain. "The Ethnobotany Database."
http://ars-genome.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/WebAce/webace?db=ethnobotdb
4. http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/1999/vascplnt/species/pmaj.htm
5. http://www.nativetech.org/lacey/plantain.html
6. http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/p/placom43.html
7. http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/NEW00570.html
8. http://www.cigno.com/exam.html
9. Weeds of Canada and the Northern United States; Royer, France & Dickinson, Richard Lone Pine Publishing & The University of Alberta Press; 1999