Every fall, goldenrod turns fields and roadsides bright yellow, and somehow ends up taking the blame for everyone’s sneezing. 🥲 But the usual culprit is ragweed, which blooms around the same time! Ragweed releases lightweight pollen that travels through the air. Goldenrod’s pollen is heavier and stickier, better suited to hitching a ride on insects than floating into your nose. Individual allergies are still possible, but goldenrod generally isn’t driving seasonal hay fever. And those yellow flowers are busy!! Bees, butterflies, wasps, and beetles all visit them. A patch that looks like “weeds” to us can be a gathering place for an entire little community. Goldenrod also has a place in traditional herbalism. European goldenrod, Solidago virgaurea, has a long history of use to increase urine flow as an adjunct for minor urinary complaints. That use is recognized by the European Medicines Agency on the basis of longstanding tradition, rather than strong clinical evidence. It isn’t a substitute for treating a urinary infection. One detail I think matters when learning about herbs: the species matters, too. “Goldenrod” is a common name shared by multiple species, so it helps to know which plant a historical source or study is actually discussing. Next time you pass a goldenrod patch, pause for a minute and watch the flowers. You might notice more visitors than you expected. Does goldenrod grow near you, and did you grow up hearing that it caused allergies?

Happy Monday!! When Nicholas Culpeper published The English Physitian in 1652, he presented plants as part of a living cosmos. Within his system, herbs, organs, bodily processes, and illnesses could all be associated with planetary influences! Two important principles in this approach were known as sympathy and antipathy: 🔥 Sympathy: working through correspondence - In sympathetic treatment, a plant governed by the same planet connected with an organ, bodily function, or condition might be used to support or strengthen it. - For example, an herb associated with Mars could sometimes be used sympathetically for something Culpeper also placed under Mars. The reasoning was that the plant and the condition shared a planetary correspondence. 🌹 Antipathy: working through opposition Antipathy followed a different idea: instead of working with the same planetary influence, the herbalist might choose a plant ruled by a planet considered contrary to the one associated with the illness. Culpeper repeatedly treated Mars and Venus as opposing influences. In The English Physitian, he describes Venus herbs as addressing Venus-related conditions “by sympathy” and certain Mars-related conditions “by antipathy.” In another example, he explains that a Venus herb could benefit the head through its antipathy toward Mars while working sympathetically upon parts governed by Venus. The English Physitian (1652), Graeme Tobyn’s analysis of Culpeper’s planetary assignments This wasn’t quite as simple as: Mars causes the condition, so always use Venus. Culpeper’s reasoning could also consider the affected part of the body, the planet associated with the disease, relationships between planets and signs, the qualities of the herb, and the individual circumstances surrounding the illness. His later astrological medical writing even describes conditions involving Venus and Mars as arising through one influence “by Sympathy” and the other “by Antipathy.” Semeiotica Uranica: An Astrological Judgment of Diseases