💾 Archived View for webdragon.mywire.org › plants › Eupatorium-Cannabinum.gmi captured on 2022-07-16 at 13:43:25. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Flower colour: Light pink
Flowering: July - September
Height: 60 - 150 cm
Active ingredients: Polysaccharides, flavonoids, benzofurans, essential oils, pyrrolizidine alkaloids
Used parts: 'Herba', 'rhizoma et radix'. The herb and the roots.
There is not much to be found about Hemp Agrimony in my books. The only thing that my books tells is that it is said to be used by deers when they are wounded. Though I know a tale about Eupatorium Cannabinum that is worth telling. I once read it in a Facebook group where someone had posted it. For now, I copied the text and translated it using Deepl. It was posted on Facebook by George Ketting.
The story begins about a hundred years before the birth of Christ.
At that time, a king by the name of Mithridates Eupatorius reigned. He was the ruler of Pontius, a kingdom in Asia Minor (nowadays a region in Turkey). He was not a king you could easily be friends with. He was constantly in conflict with the Romans, but also in his own kingdom he had many enemies, who were eager to kill him with poisoned potions.
When he was not at war, he was on his knees studying herbs intensively. He made all kinds of recipes, including poisonous ones, which he tried himself in order to become immune to the poison and outsmart his opponents.
One day, he heard about a Greek herbalist who apparently did a better job than he did. He could not let that pass. He sent an envoy to her to ask her to nurse his soldiers who had suffered infections and wounds in the wars.
Because of her loving and expert treatment of the wounded soldiers, her fame was even greater than that of the king. One day, the king ordered the herbalist to come to him and told her to say that she had learned the wisdom of herbs from him.
She went against his commandment and said that this was not the wisdom of the king, but that the herbs were gifts from Mother Earth.
You can imagine what happened. The king had her thrown into the dungeon and threatened to burn her at the stake if she did not say that she had learned the wisdom of herbs from him.
One night was long enough for her. At dawn she escaped through the small window of the cell where she was imprisoned. She landed on the sloping embankment, slipped into the filthy moat and drowned.
When the guards came to bring water and bread, they discovered that the herbalist had escaped, but there was more: when they looked through the cell window, they saw large stately plants with pink flowers growing on the muddy bank of the moat.
The king was shocked to hear that the herbalist had escaped. The guards also told him that plants were suddenly growing on the embankment. One of the guards also told the king that he had once seen the herbalist use that plant to heal the wounds of the soldiers.
In his heart, the king was actually glad that the herb lady was no longer there. For he had it announced throughout his land and far beyond his borders that he had discovered a new medicinal plant and was curing his wounded soldiers with it. The plant was given the name 'Eupatorium', which we can still find in our flora today.
Many centuries later, the name would be repeated in history.
In the eleventh century, there lived a German queen by the name of Kunigunde. This queen was used to living a life of luxury until her husband Henry the second died. Her grief was so great that she shut herself up in the monastery.
Like the Greek herbalist, she was known as a skilled herbalist and healer, who treated the poor and orphans. In the 12th century, this woman was canonized by Pope Innocentius III. The plant we know by the Latin name 'Eupatorium' is called 'Kunigundekraut' in German and in the Netherlands it has become known as the Queen's Wort.
Nowadays Hemp Agrimony is not really used for really much things, though it is still known to increase the functioning of the liver.
You should not use Eupatorium Cannabinum for several months without a break.