The plantain puzzle (and mosquito bite oil)
Where is this plant from, anyhow??
I have a bit of a complex over invasive species. On the one hand, growing up with a family member who suffered from multiple chemical sensitivities - with herbicides making her ill for days - I am predisposed to be skeptical of any environmentalist strategy that involves spraying herbicides on everything. On the other hand, I can’t help by be affected by the alarm voiced by so many regarding the environmental disaster that invasive species cause.
Add to this the fond associations that so many invasive species bring, and I’m a bit of a mess. I remind myself that in most cases, I have not planted the charming weeds that spring up all around me. If I enjoy the sky blue flowers of veronica first thing in the spring, or take delight in the heady scent of the lilac that has sprung up at the wood’s edge, am I truly culpable?
Plantain, of course, is a famous invasive species - or rather, two species, the broad leaved (Plantago major) and the lance leaved (Plantago lanceolata). One of its common names, “White Man’s Footprint”, kind of says it all. And yet, I love it. It grows with such exuberance in the most unlikely places and it was a plant I could easily identify as a child, thanks to its distinctive leaf vein pattern. So, I settled for loving it, yet feeling guilty about the mounds of huge shiny green leaves with their reddish bases, feeling as though I was letting my ecosystem down with every new plant that sprang up. Until one day…
I discovered that all that “broad leafed plantain” growing in my yard was no such thing. Instead, it was Black Seed Plantain (Plantago rugelii), a plant which is native to the US! How had I missed this? It turns out that my wildflower guide doesn’t even have a picture of this one - the leaves look pretty much just like that of the broad leaf. They are slightly narrower, and the base of the leaf stem is rosy read. The flowers are a bit different too.
I can’t help but wonder about that little common name, “white man’s footprint”. Was it only used to describe the broad leafed plantain? or was it used with less distinction? I’ve noticed that I seldom see plantain in undisturbed woods. I certainly haven’t seen it in the unmarked desert, or shrubby grasslands. No, it seems to prefer gardens soil and - its favorite - the compacted soil by roadsides and in sidewalk cracks. Perhaps all the plantains, native or invasive, are the White Man’s Footprint; thriving in the conditions created by farming and wagon driving. Perhaps, native as it is, the Black Seed Plantain wasn’t all that common before horses and wagons came to these shores.
Stopping the Itch
All three plantain species - rugelii, major, and lanceolata - make wonderful plant medicine. a few leaves crushed and soaked or, in a pinch, chewed up and spit back out can be slapped on a sting or bite for some quick relief. But my favorite way to use it is infused into oil. I’ve found that, after spending a summer evening in Maryland getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, dabbing plantain oil on each of the bites makes them go away and not come back. For me, that is the difference between spending the summer hating my life, and getting through it with some semblance of dignity. It works less well for other bites; tick bites do not disappear after a single application of oil, but it does provide some temporary relief .
So, what is the best way to make the infused oil? Although I haven’t tested it myself, I have been told that dried plantain leaf loses some of its effectiveness. This leaves us with the perennial problem of how to extract a water filled leaf into oil without having it go moldy.
I have had the best success with picking the leaves, laying them out to dry for a few days, until they fell leathery but not crunchy. One of the hardest parts is finding enough growing in areas that are clean enough to harvest, since its preferences for sidewalk cracks and driveways means that much of it is covered with car exhaust and has been stepped on a bit too often for me to comfortably harvest it. Once the leaves are mostly dry, I chop them, pack them into a jar, and pour the oil to fully cover them. I’ll use a spoon to make sure the leaves don’t come to the surface. This jar the goes into the instant pot, filled half full of water (with the wire rack in), on the yogurt setting. A yogurt maker would work fine too. I leave the lid of the jar off so that any steam can escape the jar instead of condensing.
After a full day of extracting, I filter the oil through a cheesecloth bag into a clean jar, and set it aside. After a few days, I’ll pour the bulk of it into a third jar, leaving any debris and water that has settle to the bottom behind. I’ve had good luck keeping this oil without mold for a year.
So, pick some plantain - whatever kind you have growing, and wherever your species hails from - and get oiling!
