Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Notes: Marsh Hedgenettle is not indigenous to the Garden. Eloise Butler brought in plants from Zumbra Heights (Lake Zumbra near Lake Minnetonka) on August 12, 1910 and 7 more plants from Mendota on Oct. 16, 1917. More were added in '18,'19, '25, and '31. She also brought in a plant that is not found in Minnesota, the Rough Hedgenettle, S. aspera, in 1912 from Kelsey's Nursery in North Carolina where the plant is native. By the time of Martha Crone's 1951 Garden Census, S. palustris was gone, but S. aspera was still present. On the 1986 census, S. palustris was present once again but on the 2009 census neither was present. Marsh Hedgenettle is found in the NE Quadrant of North America with Minnesota and Manitoba at the western edge of the range and the south end of the range extends from Illinois eastward to New Jersey, excepting Indiana. It is considered as introduced in the Canadian Provinces. It is also found in Europe, being very common in Great Britain.

In Minnesota S. palustris is found throughout the state with very few counties excepted. The University of MN Herbarium and the DNR plant survey list 3 species of Stachys as found in Minnesota, this one plus S. hispida and S. tenuifolia

Names and folk use: Worldwide, the genus Stachys contains one of the largest groups of species of any genera in the Mint Family. A number of plants of the genus Stachys have 'Woundwort' as part of the common name. Mrs. Grieve (Ref. #7) believes this goes back to the rustic surgery of medieval times when the leaves of Stachys, with their fine hair, were used in place of linen to bind wounds and staunch the flow of blood. The term 'hedge-nettle' is probably from England where the plant is found frequently in the hedgerows and it resembles a nettle. Densmore (Ref.#7) reports the Minnesota Chippewa used the fresh or dry leaves to treat colic by putting them in hot water to create an infusion to drink. Tilford (Ref. #39) reports that the plant is used in herb medicine in the western states as a general anti-inflammatory medicine, although the leaves have a bitter taste. Mrs. Grieve also adds that the root is edible when boiled and has an agreeable taste; the young shoots can also be cooked like Asparagus, but have a disagreeable smell.

In his Herbal of 1597 John Gerard discusses the medicinal merits of the plant. It was he who applied the alternate common name of "Clown's Woundwort". Here, with most of the old English spelling retained, is his description:

“The leaves hereof stamped with Axungia, or Hogs grease, and applied unto green wounds in manner of a pultis, doth heal them in such short time and in such absolute manner, that it is hard for any that hath not had the experience thereof to beleeve; for being in Kent about a Patient, it chance that a very poore man in mowing of Peason did cut his leg with the sieth, wherein he made a wound to the bones and withal very large and wide and also with great effusion of bloud, the poor man crept into this herbe which he bruised in his hands, and tied a great quantitie of it unto the wound with a piece of his shirt, which presently stanched the bleeding and ceased the pain insomuch that the poore man presently went to his daies worke again, and so did from daie to daie, without resting one day until he was perfectly hole, which was accomplished in a fewe daies by this herbe stamped with a little Hogs greace, and so laid upon in manner of a pultis, which did as it were glewe or soder the lips of the wounde together, and heale it according to the first intend on (as we tearme it) that is without drawing or bringing the wounds to suppuration or matter, which was fully performed in seven daies, that would have required forty daies with Balsam it selfe: I sawe the wounde, and offered to heal the same for charitie, which he refused, saying that I coulde not heale it so well as himselfe; a clownish answer I confesse without thankes for my good will, whereupon I have named it Clounes Woundwoort as aforesaide.”