Contents:
Common Names | Parts Usually Used | Plant(s) & Culture | Where Found | Medicinal Properties | Biochemical Information
Legends, Myths and Stories | Uses | Formulas or Dosages | Nutrient Content | How Sold | Warning | Resource Links | Bibliography
Scientific Names
- Apium graveolens L.
- Umbilliferae
- Umbel family
Common Names
- Cutting celery
- Garden celery
- Han-ch’in
- Leaf celery
- Par-cel
- Smallage
- Wild celery
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

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
CalorieKing: Celery, raw, edible portion
U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrition Database: Celery, raw
Bibliography
Medical Medium Celery Juice: The Most Powerful Medicine of Our Time Healing Millions Worldwide, by Anthony William (Author)
The Herb Book
, by John Lust, Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY. copyright 1974.
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
Old Ways Rediscovered
, by Clarence Meyer, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, published from 1954, print 1988
Chinese Medicinal Herbs
, compiled by Shih-Chen Li, Georgetown Press, San Francisco, California, 1973.
Indian Uses of Native Plants
, by Edith Van Allen Murphey, Meyerbooks, publisher, PO Box 427, Glenwood, Illinois 60425, copyright 1958, print 1990
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
Back to Eden
, by Jethro Kloss; Back to Eden Publishing Co., Loma Linda, CA 92354, Original copyright 1939, revised edition 1994
Secrets of the Chinese Herbalists
, by Richard Lucas, Parker Publishing Company, Inc., West Nyack, NY, 1987.
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
The Complete Medicinal Herbal
, by Penelope Ody, Dorling Kindersley, Inc, 232 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, First American Edition, copyright 1993
Indian Herbalogy of North America
, by Alma R. Hutchens, Shambala Publications, Inc., Horticultural Hall, 300 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, 1973
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
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