We learn something new every day, don't we?
Well, we do IF we are paying attention, that is...
I was scrolling through facebook the other day, and came across a post by a local farm proclaiming how they hit the motherload that morning, and were all set to make a tincture of something called 'Old Man's Beard'.
The photo they posted was of a substance that looked mighty familiar... Something like this:
Say what?!
I have this stuff all over the place in my yard. Every time it rains, dead branches fall from the old oaks here and they are usually loaded with that stuff!
The goats munch on it, but other than that, I never thought twice about it.
Here is a picture of some sticks with the lichen growing on it. Of course, I didn't stop to take photos until AFTER I had collected a ton, so the more dramatic-looking branches that were loaded were, by then, picked clean. I was left with twigs to photograph...
Time to do some research!
Turns out, this stuff, this 'Old Man's Beard', is actually a lichen, called Usnea. Usnea is some pretty amazing stuff. First of all, it is a LICHEN. Now, I didn't know this, but lichens are actually a very cool combination of fungi and algae! It grows together symbiotically and creates a new thing called a lichen. I don't know how this tidbit of information has eluded me all these years, but wow! I still think it's super cool!
Another kind of lichen...
Not all lichens are useful to people, and some can actually be harmful, BUT usnea is a valuable substance!
It can be used for things like weight loss, as a pain reliever, as an immune system booster, to control a fever, as an antiseptic wound dressing, and as a cough remedy, by acting as an expectorant.
I find it quite exciting because it is anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-fungal! As such it can be used for all sorts of injuries and infections! Because it affects mainly gram-positive bacteria, it can kill off all manner of pathogens WITHOUT HARMING our beneficial bacteria! This is pretty stinkin' awesome!
When you take typical antibiotics from your local PhD, it wipes out the disease, yes, along with all your beneficial bacteria, making life miserable for the next few months as your body tries to rebuild it's immune system. Finding natural antimicrobial substances that do not harm your beneficial bacteria is a pretty wonderful thing, especially since it is FREE in your own backyard!
An old oak tree: a common place for usnea to grow.
The most common way to prepare and store usnea is as a tincture. Usnea is not water soluble, so many people preserve its qualities in alcohol.
Now, as excited as I was, I did not have any alcohol in the house. I live 30 minutes from the nearest town, and I was not going to spend my morning running to town for booze. I began looking for other options.
A less common way to preserve this fantastic stuff is dehydrating! I happen to have a dehydrator on hand, so naturally, this was the route I chose!
After washing the usnea VERY well, (it was full of sand from the ground!), I spread it on a towel to dry as I set up the dehydrator.
I loaded up the dehydrator with the fluffy lichen. It took about two trays, so I decided not to let the empty trays go to waste. I also dried out some ginger that day, and bananas. Yum!
After a few hours, when the usnea was quite dry and brittle, I removed it from the machine and allowed it to cool.
I used my coffee grinder to grind the lichen into a powder. (Maybe there is a better method, but like I said, I was going with what I had.)
After some grinding, the whole large pile of lichen I started out with was reduced down to about 3/4 of a cup of powder.
Now, I have to admit, I only made this powder a couple days ago, and I have not personally used it yet.
Also, guys, I am not a doctor. Shocking, I know. Just to cover my butt here, I am not giving anyone medical advice.
I would highly recommend doing your own research, just like I am, to find the best uses and doses for this wonderful usnea. I feel like it will be quite useful. We like using natural remedies around here, and this stuff fits right in. I've only found one study that was suggesting usnea may be unsafe, BUT that was a drug that contained an isolated extract of a substance in the lichen, taken as a weight loss supplement, NOT the whole plant body.
ALSO, it is worth noting that there are toxic look-alikes to usnea. I am quite confident that I have the actual thing, but please, do your research and make sure you identify your lichens without a doubt before you start munching on the stuff.
Anyway, how about it? Have you heard of usnea before? Do you use things growing in your yard for their health benefits?
Thanks for stopping by! Let me know below what natural remedies you like using, or what cool stuff you harvest from YOUR yard!
Have a wonderful day, Steemians! ♥
This work by @SquishySquid is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
