Effect:
anti-inflammatory
Areas of application:
Lowers cholesterol levels, helps ease labor, promotes breast milk production, estrogen supplementation, diabetes (used with other herbs such as bottle gourd, prickly pear, red mulberry and American ginseng), arthritis, rheumatism, joint inflammation, hemorrhoids
Plant parts used:
lichen
Collection time:
all year round
To find:
In moist savannahs, swamps and lowlands. On trees, cacti, rock faces, power lines, roofs and so on.
Ingredients:
3-Hydroxy-3-Methylglutaric Acid
Miscellaneous:
Spanish moss forms shoots that can be up to 7.60 m long. It is a bearded, silvery-gray filamentous lichen that hangs from trees throughout the southeastern United States. It should not be confused with Usnea lichen. The plants are covered with small scales that absorb water from the air. It has no roots and absorbs its nutrients from the air, rain and sun. Spanish moss blooms with an inconspicuous flower, but only rarely. Its flowers have three greenish petals and three sepals. The plant is actually not a moss, but an epiphyte (epiphyte).
Spanish moss was previously used as packaging material and cushioning material for sofas and mattresses, which often proved problematic as bedbugs often nested in the plant.
According to a Native American legend, Spanish moss is the hair of a princess who was killed by enemies on her wedding day. The grieving groom is said to have cut it off and hung it in a tree. The wind carried the hair away and spread it all over the land.