Herbs A-Z: Ulmus & Uncaria

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This week we return to our home herbal apothecary shelves and discuss two medicinal barks: slippery elm and cat’s claw.

Ulmus rubra, slippery elm, is an at-risk plant. We don’t work with it frequently, for this reason – other demulcents will usually do the job, just fine. It is a standout mucilaginous plant, though, that’s for sure! It can be difficult to strain cut & sifted herb for tea, in fact, because of the thickness of mucilage creates when infused in water. For this reason it’s often easier to work with it as a powder. Never forget that other elms – especially the abundant / “invasive” species Ulmus pumila, the Siberian elm – can do all the same work as slippery elm!

Uncaria tomentosa, cat’s claw, is an herb with a lot of reputations. It’s reputed as an “anti-cancer” herb, as an “immune stimulant”, as an “herb for joint pain”… It’s easy to put herbs into conceptual boxes when we talk about them this way. To break out of those boxes, try two paths. One is a return to fundamentals: here is a cooling, drying, tonifying herb, which acts correctively on hot/damp/lax areas in the body. Another is a dive into research: here’s an herb with extensive research demonstrating its activity on chemical messengers of the immune system involved in the regulation of inflammation. Weaving these threads together is a good way to broaden your application of this plant and evade the trap of selecting herbs “for” diagnoses.

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