Medicinal hydrangea is a wild variety and has little in common with the dramatic blue and pink garden hydrangeas with their showy pompom flower heads. It is also known by the common name seven barks which refers to the peculiar characteristic of its stem bark, which peels off in seven thin layers of different colours. The genus name Hydrangea means water vessel. While this refers to hydrangea being a marsh or aquatic plant, it also attests to its medicinal activity.
Hydrangea root is a diuretic herb traditionally used by Cherokee Indians for improving the health of both the bladder and the kidney, which remove excess water and waste from the body. It is reputed to be effective in a large range of urinary problems such as urinary stones and infections, including cystitis and urethritis. Internationally renowned herbalist David Hoffman says hydrangea’s greatest use is in the treatment of inflamed or enlarged prostate glands. Hoffman’s contemporary and author of The Essential Book of Herbal Medicine, Simon Mills, agrees saying: “However it is for prostatitis that it has been most recommended. It may be seen as a useful complement to saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) and/or damiana (Turnera diffusa) in supportive prescriptions for senescence [the process of growing old] and infirmity in men.” In her modern herbal classic Common Herbs for Natural Health, the late Juliette de Bairacli Levy adds that it is “a mild and soothing herb, effective in rheumatic troubles and glandular disorders.”
In her eponymous book about herbal medicine (1988), the late Dorothy Hall included hydrangea in her materia medica of person pictures. She called it the “messy divorce” herb: “Hydrangea can become set in a pattern of bitterness and cynicism…often holding on to grudges, resentments and old hurts…if you don’t want to carry a load of heavy stones in your emotional water vessel, hydrangea may be a necessary ingredient in your individual mixture.” Hall prescribed hydrangea with herbs such as horsetail (Equisetum arvense) and uva ursi (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) to soften, chemically change or loosen gravel and stone. Hoffman combines it with uva ursi and gravel root (Eupatorium purpureum) for kidney stones and horsetail for prostate problems.
References
Grieve M. A Modern Herbal. Middlesex:Penguin Books. 1978. p. 424
Hylton, W ed. The Rodale Herb Book. Rodale Press, 1974. p. 474 http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/h/hydran45.html
Hoffmann D. The New Holistic Herbal. Element:Dorest. 1990. p. 207
Mills S. The Essential Book of Herbal Medicine. Penguin:London. 1991. p.520
de Bairacli Levy J. Common Herbs for Natural Health. Ash Tree Publishing:New York. 1997. p.87
Hall D. Dorothy Hall’s Herbal Medicine. Sydney:Lothian. 1988. p. 203-6
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