Yellowroot

Yellowroot’s green buds are just beginning to leaf out atop tall slender stalks this time of year in the Southern Appalachians. And it’s usually around this time of year, with spring on the horizon, when Yellowroot makes its way into my daily tea cup for some immune support and gentle early spring cleaning. The tea is incredibly bitter, but I love it mixed with Dandelion or Sassafras root…sometimes even with a little Maple syrup. Yellowroot (Xanthorhiza simplicissima, Ranunculaceae) is used as an anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial and anti-viral…for upset stomaches and as a liver tonic...just for a start! I first got to know Yellowroot years ago when a friend, Carl Lindberg, gifted me a young plant to tend. Since then I’ve met her on sun-dappled stream banks in Athens and there is a special place I go in North Carolina where the forest floor is completely covered in Yellowroot and Ground Cedar - a spring-fed wetland with an unmistakably powerful and sweet presence. I hope you get to meet this wonderful plant if you haven’t already and share in her special gifts.**