Cold Weather Herbs: Yarrow

The I-Ching oracle, Roman soldiers, hops, flu, nosebleeds and trout. There are many reasons why I love yarrow! Green & abundant before mid-December, it's a useful culinary herb this time of year.

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Today we had our first snowfall of the year! Beautiful but zero calories which is a little scary on a wild food diet. So I really appreciate the plants that keep on going despite the snow and chilly advance of winter. One such plant is yarrow (Achillea millefolium, Compositae) which is still in leafy abundance enjoying a respite from the constant crowding of the meadow buttercup. Yarrow is both a useful and a mysterious plant in many ways, with a long relationship with humans. In fact it is one of the oldest plants ever found in archaeological digs, tucked into a medicine bundle next to the remains of a healer who was buried in the Shanidar Caves in Iraq some 60,000 to 90,000 years ago.

Yarrow is a dark green perennial plant that grows up to 60 - 80 cm high. It has feathery leaves and a slightly woolly appearance, with white flower heads arranged in flat-top clusters from May to June. Occasionally the flowers are cream or pink. The millefolium part of its name means ‘a thousand leaves’ and if you look closely each leaf segment is indeed like a tiny forest of leaves. When you rub the leaves between your fingers you will smell a strong, medicinal 'rosemary' aroma. In fact it’s rather like rosemary, lavender, thyme and bay all got into bed together. Yarrow grows throughout Scotland, except in very boggy sites, and is particularly fond of roadsides and grassy banks. I often find it basking in the sunlight just as I emerge from a woodland and the habitat changes.

In the kitchen, you can use yarrow instead of rosemary to flavour meat dishes and is particularly suitable finely chopped with game or seafood as it can be a bit overpowering with mild meats. I often use a thick bed of it to bake fish like salmon and chop it finely and add it to pâtes. One of my favourites is to put yarrow leaves inside the belly of a freshly caught sea trout and cook it, wrapped in seaweed, on hot rocks, heated in a beachside fire.

John Evelyn (1620-1706), an English diarist, recommends the young leaves "lightly fried until turning brown, then eaten with orange juice and sugar". In Scandinavia, yarrow is called 'Field Hops' and still used instead of hops to flavour beer or 'gruit ale'. Nowadays we’re starting to see a revival of its use in beers and craft gins.

The flowers and young leaves are used to make a lovely flavoured herbal tea. Used medicinally, its antispasmodic properties help relaxation and improve wellbeing (and even, it is reputed, libido). In Orkney, it is called 'Milfoil Tea' and taken to dispel melancholy. In herbal medicine it is often used in teas to head off colds or flu and boost immunity - often combined with peppermint, elderflowers or oak leaf - as well as to treat internal injury or bleeding.

There are many common names for yarrow but of note are those hinting at its healing properties: Woundwort, Nosebleed, Staunchwort, Bloodwort. It deserves these names, as an alkaloid in yarrow – called achilleine - speeds up blood clotting and wound healing. In fact the botanical name Achillea was given to yarrow as it was reportedly the favourite herb of the warrior Achilles. It was certainly used by the ancient Greeks as a battlefield first aid herb and was so popular with Roman soldiers that they had a special little leather pouch to attach to their belts to contain their powdered yarrow. It also contains alkamides which are pain-killing, anti-inflammatory and anti-irritant, with digestive and immune boosting properties. It even boosts the immunity of other plants grown near it by secreting compounds into the soil that help increase disease resistance. In the Renaissance period in Europe strong yarrow tea was used to treat malaria and recent in vitro research has shown that it genuinely is active against plasmodia like malaria, babesia and theileria species.

In the Scottish Highlands, fresh yarrow leaves were used as a pain-killing, styptic (blood clotting) ointment for wounds and bleeding piles. You can make your own first-aid ointment for bruises and cuts: Steep bruised yarrow leaves in a jar of warmed sunflower oil for a week or two, in a warm place. Then strain it off and gently heat it with beeswax (about 20% beeswax to oil) until the beeswax melts. Pour into a little jar or tin and leave to cool when it will set. Adding a few drops of rosemary essential oil will help to extend the shelf life of your balm.

Children would just put a crushed or slightly chewed yarrow leaf up their nose if they had a nosebleed. However, if you overdo it you can create a nose bleed by moving the blood too much - this I have never tried. In the Outer Hebrides, a leaf would be chewed to freshen the breath or to relieve a heavy period. It’s ability to break up blood stasis and regulate blood flow is why it is still used widely today as a herbal tea to balance heavy periods or flooding, and in the treatment of fibroids.

Cosmetically, yarrow tea can also be used as an astringent cleanser for oily skin, as a rinse for oily or greying hair or as a facial steam for acne or rosacea. In the days before electric razors, it was highly valued for use after shaving to help heal nicks and cuts in record time! You can make your own aftershave gifts for Christmas: Cover yarrow leaves with neat vodka and leave in the jar a sunny place for 3 weeks to produce a yarrow tincture. This can be used on its own, or combined with witch hazel, and if desired scented with a little bay and lemon oil, to make a practical aftershave. Bottle and decorate, gift with love.

Beloved by mystics around the world, in the Hebrides, yarrow was used in charms to foretell the future. In China, some 3000 years ago, cleromancers started to use polished yarrow stalks in the divination ritual of the I-Ching. Why they used yarrow is hard to guess. One theory is because yarrow was grown on the grave of Confucius but the I-Ching is probably even older than the sage. As adding a few leaves to your compost pile helps to accelerate decomposition, it would be a bonus in any woodland cemetery.

I could go on for days just talking about yarrow but hopefully I’ve given you enough to make you take a second look at this under-utilised culinary herb - if nothing else. So whether you’re making a tomato sauce for pasta or a potato salad, finely chop some yarrow and get experimenting.

All hail, yarrow!

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Tell me. Have you used yarrow for anything as described above, or for something else entirely? Let me know in the comments below! And as always, please share widely. The world could use less foil and more milfoil.