The Medicinal Herb Info site was created to help educate visitors about the often forgotten wisdom of the old ways of treating illnesses. Many of today's drugs and medicines were originally derived from natural ingredients, combinations of plants and other items found in nature.

We are not suggesting that you ignore the help of trained medical professionals, simply that you have additional options available for treating illnesses. Often the most effective treatment involves a responsible blend of both modern and traditional treatments.

We wish you peace and health!

Burnet

Scientific Names

Burnet

  • Sanguisorba minor L.
  • Sanguisorba officinalis L.
  • Rosaceae
  • Rose family

Common Names

  • Bipulo
  • Lady-smocks
  • Pimpinella
  • Salad burnet
  • Sanguisorbia
  • Solbegrella

Back to Top


Parts Usually Used

Leaves, root
Back to Top


Burnet

Description of Plant(s) and Culture

Salad burnet is a bushy, perennial plant produces nearly evergreen, fernlike foliage; 1-2 feet tall, the leaves compound, leaflets 7-15, toothed. Tiny purplish red (almost crimson) flowers, in oval or thickly rounded heads; blooms May to October.
Back to Top


Where Found

Maine to Minnesota, escaped elsewhere, mostly cultivated in herb gardens.

The wild variety grows in England, especially in Huntingdon, Northamptonshire and near London. Dislikes high ground, preferring the moister soil of low, sheltered valleys.
Back to Top


Medicinal Properties

Astringent, styptic, febrifuge, hemostatic, alterative
Back to Top


Biochemical Information

Tannins, the leaves contain a sapanoside and flavones
Back to Top


Legends, Myths and Stories

Salad burnet has a nutty flavor that hints of cucumber, and is similar to borage in its taste and uses. Add to salads, cold drinks, soups, cream cheese, vinegar, or use as a garnish. Must use fresh leaves.
Makes a tea from fresh or dried leaves, served hot or cold; once was used to flavor wine. Said to be taken as protection of the Plague and other contagious diseases in Pliny’s day.
The botanical name (Latin sanguis = blood) refers to its ability to staunch bleeding of wounds.
Another species of burnet actually goes by the name of salad burnet (Potaerium sanguisorba).
Back to Top


Uses

Leaf tea used for fevers and as a styptic. American soldiers drank tea before battles in the Revolutionary War to prevent bleeding if they were wounded. Root tea stops menstrual bleeding, bleeding from piles, dysentery; externally, for sores, swelling, canker sores, ulcers, moist skin ailments, wounds, burns. Powdered root used for 2nd and 3rd degree burns.
Back to Top


Formulas or Dosages

Pound the leaves into pulp and spread on a clean piece of bandage or lint. Apply as a poultice.
Back to Top


Warning

Contains tannins, contraindicated for burns in Western medicine.
Back to Top


Bibliography

Buy It! The Complete Medicinal Herbal, by Penelope Ody, Dorling Kindersley, Inc, 232 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, First American Edition, copyright 1993

Buy It! Country Home Book of Herbs, Meredith Books, Editorial Dept. RW240, 1716 Locust Street, Des Moines, IA 50309-3023, copyright 1994

Buy It! Culpeper’s Complete Herbal & English Physician: Updated With 117 Modern Herbs, by Nicholas Culpeper, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, 1990, (reprint of 1814)

Buy It! Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants, by Steven Foster and James A. Duke., Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10000

Buy It! The Herb Book, by John Lust, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. copyright 1974.

Buy It! Indian Herbalogy of North America, by Alma R. Hutchens, Shambala Publications, Inc., Horticultural Hall, 300 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, 1973

Buy It!The Magic of Herbs, by David Conway, published by Jonathan Cape, Thirty Bedford Square, London, England. (Out of print)

Buy It! Planetary Herbology, by Michael Tierra, C.A., N.D., O.M.D., Lotus Press, PO Box 325, Twin Lakes. WI 53181., Copyright 1988, published 1992

Buy It! Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third College Edition, Victoria Neufeldt, Editor in Chief, New World Dictionaries: A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 15 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10023

Buy It! The Rodale Herb Book: How to Use, Grow, and Buy Nature’s Miracle Plants (An Organic gardening and farming book), edited by William H. Hylton, Rodale Press, Inc. Emmaus, PA, 18049., 1974

Back to Top

Share