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!

Celery

Scientific Names

Celery

  • Apium graveolens L.
  • Umbilliferae
  • Umbel family

Common Names

  • Cutting celery
  • Garden celery
  • Han-ch’in
  • Leaf celery
  • Par-cel
  • Smallage
  • Wild celery

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Parts Usually Used

Juice, roots, leaves, and seeds
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Description of Plant(s) and
Culture

Celery is a widely cultivated, biennial plant; the fleshy, bulbous root sends up, in the second year, an angular, furrowed, branched stem from 1-3 feet high. Celery leaves are opposite, dark green, shiny, and pinnate, the leaflets wedge-shaped, incised, coarsely toothed. The white to gray-white flowers bloom in paniculate compound umbels from July to November. The fruit is a small, ribbed, elliptic-ovate seed.

Other varieties: Leaf, French or Chinese celery (A. graveolens var. secalinum) or (A graveolens var. par-cel) native to Europe and Asia.
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Where Found

Cultivated and also grows wild in salty soils of North and South America, Europe, and Africa.
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Medicinal Properties

Appetizer, aromatic, diuretic, emmenagogue, stimulant

Seeds: carminative, sedative
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Biochemical Information

Essential oil, flavonic glycoside and a furanocoumarin (bergaptene), iron and vitamins A, B, and C
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Legends, Myths and Stories

In the older civilized parts it was cultivated prior to the Christian era. Now it is cultivated in the British Isles, India and the United States and Canada.

Wild celery (A. graveolens) Native American names: Shoshone, “Hobe”; Paiute, “Yeduts”; Washoe, “Mo-zook-addas”; in Warm Springs, Oregon, “P’tish-p’tish” dried and used for perfume.

Mayrick’s Family Herbal, printed in 1790 states, “the seeds are of a warm carminative nature; they disperse wind in the stomach and bowels.”
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Uses

Celery neutraizes uric acids and other excess acids in the body. Usually the seeds (2 heaping tbsp. in 2 quarts water) are made into a tea. This tea, in a covered pot, is allowed to simmer slowly for 3 hours, strained, and taken hot, 1 cup 3 to 4 times per day.

Reduces blood pressure. Relieves muscle spasms. Good for arthritis and liver problems. Acts as an antioxidant and as a sedative. Celery juice and oil induces menstruation.
The expressed juice of the plant, particularly the fleshy petioles, is the most effective form of medicine. It can be used for dropsy, rheumatic tendencies, gout, lumgabo, tendencies toward overweight, flatulence, neuralgia, blood tonic, produces perspiration, nervousness, chronic pulmonary catarrh, lack of appetite, indigestion, and deficiency diseases. It is a strong diuretic which is not to be used when acute kidney problems exist (moderate use is allowable when kidney problems are chronic). Promotes the onset of menstruation; take it only in moderate amounts during pregnancy. As a salad vegetable or made into a tea, celery can be helpful clearing up skin problems.

A decoction of the seeds can be used for bronchitis and as a sedative for nervousness. A yellowish oil extracted from the root can restore sexual potency impaired by illness and frigidity, kidney and bladder problems.

Celery juice is distinctly alkaline and eliminative. It is therefore recommended for all disturbances caused by the accumulation of wastes and toxins, such as rheumatic and arthritic ailments. Celery juice regulates the water balance and puts new life into elderly people.
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Formulas or Dosages

Decoction: use 1/2 tsp. seeds with 1/2 cup water; boil briefly and strain.

Juice: take 1 tbsp., 2 to 3 times a day, an hour before meals. An electric vegetable juicer makes fresh celery juice easy to extract. Mixes well with carrot and apple juice. Due to its high sodium content, use less than you do of the carrot and apples, if blood pressure is high.
Oil: take 6-8 drops in water, 2 times a day.
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Nutrient Content

Calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, niacin, vitamins A, B, C

Celery nutrients

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How Sold

This vegetable or the seeds can be purchased in almost any supermarket.
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Warning

Bergaptene in the seeds could increase photosensitivity, so do not apply the essential oil in the bright sunshine. Avoid the oil and large doses of the seeds during pregnancy: they can act as a uterine stimulant. Do not buy seeds intended for cultivation, they are often treated with fungicides.

Celery juice and celery oil should not be used during pregnancy.
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Resource Links

LiveStrong.com: Celery With Peanut Butter Calories

LiveStrong.com: The Health Benefits of Celery Juice

WhFoods.org: Celery

CalorieKing: Celery, raw, edible portion

U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrition Database: Celery, raw

PubMed.gov: Chemical synthesis of 9(Z)-octadecenamide and its hypolipidemic effect: a bioactive agent found in the essential oil of mountain celery seeds.

PubMed.gov: L-3-n-butylphthalide improves cognitive impairment and reduces amyloid-beta in a transgenic model of Alzheimer’s disease.

PubMed.gov: Gastric antiulcer, antisecretory and cytoprotective properties of celery (Apium graveolens) in rats.

PubMed.gov: A toxicological investigation of a celery seed extract having anti-inflammatory activity.

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Bibliography

Buy It! Medical Medium Celery Juice: The Most Powerful Medicine of Our Time Healing Millions Worldwide, by Anthony William (Author)

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

Buy It! The Nature Doctor: A Manual of Traditional and Complementary Medicine, by Dr. H.C.A. Vogel; Keats Publishing, Inc., 27 Pine Street (Box 876) New Canaan, CT. 06840-0876. Copyright Verlag A. Vogel, Teufen (AR) Switzerland 1952, 1991

Buy It! Old Ways Rediscovered, by Clarence Meyer, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, published from 1954, print 1988

Buy It! Chinese Medicinal Herbs, compiled by Shih-Chen Li, Georgetown Press, San Francisco, California, 1973.

Buy It! Indian Uses of Native Plants, by Edith Van Allen Murphey, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, copyright 1958, print 1990

Buy It! Earl Mindell’s Herb Bible, by Earl Mindell, R.Ph., Ph.D., Simon & Schuster/Fireside, Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

Herbal Gardening, compiled by The Robison York State Herb Garden, Cornell Plantations, Matthaei Botanical Gardens of the University of Michigan, University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley., Pantheon Books, Knopf Publishing Group, New York, 1994, first edition

Buy It! Back to Eden, by Jethro Kloss; Back to Eden Publishing Co., Loma Linda, CA 92354, Original copyright 1939, revised edition 1994

Buy It! Secrets of the Chinese Herbalists, by Richard Lucas, Parker Publishing Company, Inc., West Nyack, NY, 1987.

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

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! Prescription for Nutritional Healing, Fifth Edition: A Practical A-to-Z Reference to Drug-Free Remedies Using Vitamins, Minerals, Herbs & Food Supplements, by James F. Balch, M.D. and Phyllis A. Balch, C.N.C., Avery Publishing Group, Inc., Garden City Park, NY

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

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