From HerbMentor.com this is Herb Mentor Radio.
You are listening to Herb Mentor Radio on HerbMentor.com. I'm John Gallagher. My guest today is Darcy Williamson. Darcy is an herbalist, author, and educator from the Rocky Mountains in Idaho. Darcy is founder of From the Forest, an herbal products and education business whose mission is to provide education on identifying sustainable harvesting, formulating, and using medicinal plants found throughout the Rocky Mountains. Darcy is author of Healing Plants of the Rocky Mountains and the Rocky Mountain Wild Foods Cookbook.
You can find amazing herbal products, apprenticeships, and more at darcyfromtheforest.com. Darcy Williamson, welcome to Herb Mentor Radio.
Thank you, John.
So great to have you here. I met you at the, Northwest Herb Fest a few years back, and and, it was great meeting you there, and it's great to finally have you here.
I love introducing folks to different herbalists and plants from different places that they may not places they may not get to visit or if maybe they'll, you know, get inspired to visit. So, are you from the Rocky Mountains?
Yeah.
Well, I was born in Culver City, California, but my parents moved me to the Rocky Mountains when I was two.
Well, that's, that's yeah. So that's that's so you basically, you've been there your whole life.
I've been here all my life. All my, everything I remember is here.
So your parents moved you there. Were your parents herbalists?
No. They weren't. But, my, father worked for Technicolor who who was kind of a forerunner in alternative medicine.
And so I had the, good fortune of having him as my pediatrician in nineteen forty nine. And, his inspiration inspired my dad to move his children out of the city and into a healthier environment, which turned out to be McCall, Idaho.
Wow. So that's quite a a move. I mean, there he is at the job in Hollywood and the glamorous, golden age of film. Right?
Right.
And, and he just, did he still work for the in that work? I know. Just kinda give it all up?
He gave it all up. My, step grandfather had taken my grandmother on a trip, and they saw this, these cottages for sale along the river. So there was a resort for sale, and, he put down the down payment and told my dad he found his place.
And so we were packed up in the station wagon and moved up here within a couple weeks.
That is amazing.
So then did you have then local people that from that area that taught you about, using the plants? No.
So what happened? How'd you get into this?
Because, my parent my father went to work at the sawmill, and my mother, worked the cottages.
And I had a brother that was, just a few months old.
And so they were very busy, and I was allowed a lot of freedom, as I grew up in this environment. And I think, as with a lot of verbalists, I was able to tap into my intuitive knowledge, my instinctive knowledge.
And I used to find, oh, fish that the fishermen enthroned on the bank along the river, and I would revive them with hawthorn.
And I'd find Oh, wait.
Wait. Wait. Wait. How'd you do that?
Okay. I would, I would take the fish and poke a couple of berries down its throat or some some, flowers depending on what season it was, hold it upright in the water in about, thirty seconds or so, it would kick start and swim away. But if I didn't do that, the fish would just die I think, down to the bottom of of the the river.
How did you figure this out?
Like, I would never cross my mind that I'm never gonna see some fish that are dying. Let me put some hawthorn in. You know?
Well, I I think I think that the only answer I can have is instinctive knowledge. And I also, used yarrow and willow bark for and I had a little vet clinic in the basement of my parents' house and a little cemetery in the backyard.
Actually, it was quite a large cemetery.
As you experimented with which which which which berry to put down. It's there. Oh, gosh. That's so you were, you had a lab and you were experimenting as a kid from a very young age.
Age. Right. About five.
About five. And and that, of course, instills your you know, you're you're in this beautiful place. You have wilderness all around you. So you're a kid connected to nature growing up.
It's just what's around you. You have a naturally, you have a passion for for for helping living beings. And, and then at what point did did you start to be able to, refine this knowledge? Like, did you have a mentor or were there books?
Mainly books and and researching. I was always curious about plants, and I would research books.
And, I didn't know any herbalists.
And I didn't even know the term for a long time, but I, I left I got discouraged with the medical system around the age of seventeen.
And the last time Why?
How? Like, what what made you discouraged about that?
I I lost a child right after birth, and the doctors were so they wouldn't listen to what I was saying. So they didn't understand what I was going through, so they didn't know that I was sick.
They kept telling me I I was doing something else, which I wasn't, like eating a lot of food.
And so it it the I turned I didn't know where to put my anger, so I just went back to the earth.
And I haven't been to a physician since nineteen seventy for anything.
Wow. And really?
So since nineteen seventy Yeah.
That was the birth of my last child.
Wow. Wow. So how many, children do you have?
Two two living.
Wow. Wow.
So and also there weren't really a lot of books then. Right? So you really kinda maybe use them more as guides, but you're you're using your intuition. You're using your your experience that you've had.
Yeah. The intuitive knowledge.
And, yeah, a lot of things, I remember rubbing arnica flowers on sprained ankles because I would run barefoot along the river and jump from boulder to boulder and nest nest quite frequently and twist the leg.
And there were, arnical flowers and leaves that grew along the bank, and I would rub them on my ankle when I was really And because they were there, they were the flower that was close there.
Yeah. They were there. Oh, yeah.
That at work.
And they had a a unique scent, unlike some of the other flowers, and they just seemed oily. I don't know.
That's a Something else.
My shoes sometimes.
And and did you find it as time was going on and you started seeing more and more herbal books with information in it, you were like, yeah. I figured that one out on my own.
There there were some. Yeah. And then there were other things that that I'd used herbs for that I didn't find any documented knowledge of it, but it still had worked.
No. You know, being in Idaho, you have I mean, it's there there's there's a a culture Native American culture. There's pioneer, you know, like, history.
Did you were able to tap into any any locals at all, whether from Native American or local community or elders that that helped with any information that inspired you?
Unfortunately, not. I did have a neighbor that had introduced me as a young child to, huckleberries, thimbleberries.
Mhmm. So I I got interested in grazing at a very early age. She also showed me, morel mushrooms.
And that might've I think that probably sparked the greater interest of, well, if this is good for something to eat, what are these other things good for?
Right. Because you have this then you realize at some point that, gosh, I have a giant pharmacy.
Yeah. I did a lot of nibbling.
But you later did research on all that. Right? Because I even wrote a book on Native American, uses of plants. Yeah.
So, I've done a lot of research as I, got older.
And, of course, now the Internet's a wonderful font of knowledge because of all the other herbalists that are working with backyard plants.
Mhmm. It finally linked me to a community because I was pretty much isolated as an herbalist here in central Idaho.
Did did you see, like, were peep at what point did people start seeking your help?
Well, they didn't actually.
When in the late seventies when I learned that the FDA was starting to look at herbal medicine as something that they want control Right.
I kind of, became concerned because it's always been the common man's, medicine.
And so I thought I should start teaching people what's in our own backyard so that if, they took the herbal medicine off the shelves and and later standardized them or whatever they were planning on doing with them, put them put them in with the AMA.
The thing they couldn't take from the public was the knowledge.
And I've always been a very shy person.
So it was a a leap for me to start reaching out and saying I have some knowledge of things that might be helpful to you, and I started doing forays and classes in the late Okay. So it began the outreach began with classes and then maybe some of those students were like, hey, Darcy, I have this, my my friend has this, you know Right.
Situation. Right.
And and did you find yourself, you know, drawn to that, enjoying that? Or was that kind of a challenging time when you're like, oh, boy. I don't know if I should be, you know, sharing this with you. Yeah.
It was a challenge, and it it remains so.
I'm more of a plant person than a people person. And so Mhmm.
Some plants are sensitive, and it's like, is this person's condition serious enough for me to share this plant with them type of of thing.
Right. Right. Wow.
Okay. So, you know, reason why I've been wanting to have you on here, for a while is because I find that from having your books and all and, your story that you really, like, exemplify that, like, herbalist of place. You know? Like, you you you landed somewhere. It's like you were a dandelion seed floating in the wind and you landed in Idaho, and you grew there, and you got to know all the plants that that grew around you, ones that weren't natives, ones that were natives, and you and you learn to, bring these into your life in in in as many ways as you, possibly could. And so when you go about learning, like, local the local herbs as you were learning after your like, did you just just start using them for things? Did you did you go make a a tea or try eating them?
Like, how what did you how'd you go about that discovering them?
I would always, try them first. In fact Mhmm. Even now, any large batches of tincture or herbs that I'm not real familiar with, I take, a larger dosage than I'd ever recommend to someone to see what type of reaction I may have. But, yeah, I I would make, formulations and and tinctures and teas and sample things raw.
And, you know, sometimes they did into the wrong thing.
Is is that how you learn the the the, more dangerous plants or you find that they just kinda tell you that they're a little bit dangerous? Oh, they don't tell me anything.
Well, I'm like, like, the loops.
Yeah. Well, well, that's a that's actually something a lot of people learning, that crossing that boundary from I mean, what I'm trying to say, like, when someone's new and learning and they want to then start picking what's around them, of course, very early concern is is this safe?
And so what do you tell your students?
Well, I teach them what I know that is harmful. And when I was about eight years old, my colleges came, doctor Alexander Smith, and stayed in one of my parents' cottages to study the mushrooms in our region.
And he would describe mushrooms to me because I was always in in the forest, and I would take him to where I'd seen what he described or something similar to him or to what he had described. Or I would take him into patches of mushrooms that I'd seen a large variety.
And, he taught me probably the best thing about, edible versus poisonous. And he said that in the Rocky Mountain areas, there's only about three percent of all the mushrooms that are poisonous that would do me serious harm. And I should learn those mushrooms instead of all the hundreds of the other mushrooms that are not harmful.
It doesn't mean all those other mushrooms were edible or palatable, but as long as I knew the three percent that were dangerous, I could go and sample all the others and make up my own mind.
Uh-huh.
So that's what I teach my students. They use that protocol.
So what you you learn, if you don't worry about all the the plants, you learn the percentage or the plants in the in your own backyard or your area that are toxic, and you stay away from those. And then you can nibble and and taste anything else with, without worrying about ending up in the emergency room.
Right. Yeah. So then that's quite simple because, I mean, I can think of just a handful of plants in my general bioregion that would harm me if I had some quantities of it. And next to the hundreds and hundreds of plants that there are around here, it's just a handful. Right. And you learn those, so that's very good advice. So that should that should I'm sure that's gonna be quite a relief for, folks who are wanting to go out and start harvesting around them.
Speaking of harvest harvesting, you consider yourself more of a sustainable harvester of herbs you've said versus a wildcrafter. Is that correct?
Right. Right.
Yeah. Can you can you talk about this?
Yeah. Wildcraving is basically people that go out and they they're paid by the pound.
Some of the dangers that have happened through that is, harvesting, say, horsetail, which which pulls up nitrates and other toxins from the soil, and they grow lush and green and abundant in areas that are toxic because they're doing their job.
They're cleaning up the soil. And a wildcrafter is likely to pick from those areas because they're getting paid by the pound. It's not that they realize they're toxic because a lot of wildcrafters don't really know the constituent and the, diversity and the things that the plant actually does.
Mhmm.
So, they can also go into an area and rather than take one out of fifteen or one out of twenty plants, they'll take everything they see within the area, especially if they have bought purchased the permit to do so. Then they, you know, they have I don't see a lot of wildcrafters that sustainably harvest.
I'm sure there are those that do, but, the majority that I know of aren't.
Because they're they're not necessarily thinking they'll come back to that same place.
They're just going and Right.
Gonna pick it and move on and They'll move on and find another place where if you're making medicine from the plant and using it, then you become more aware of its environment and your circulate you're circling back and you're you're going into the same regions and you can see your impact.
Mhmm.
And, you become very attached to the plants that heal you or heal your friends and family, and you become protective.
Do you, when you teach when you're teaching students, your students, like, what now that was a lot right there, but is there any other kind of tips or things you tell them, in learning how to sustainably harvest?
Right. There are certain things, like brown's peony root, that I've planted the seed here, and it's taken eight years and maybe the root's three or four inches long. The above ground plant isn't, really large yet, and it's it bloomed last year, so that's a plant that grows very, very slowly.
And so when we harvest from colonies around peony, we'll take one plant out of every fifteen, and then we never go back to that area to harvest.
We always have to find new new patches because it would take a lifetime for that patch to recover sufficiently if we harvested there regularly.
Right.
So it sounds then like knowing really researching and knowing the plant you're picking first Right.
Versus something like dandelion flowers in a field, which doesn't really matter. Right?
Yeah. Those are people friendly plants. You can pick those with wild abandonment because they're gonna still follow you around no matter what you do to them.
Exactly.
And then So there's kind of like a couple of areas you focus on.
You got one is the sustainability factor, and two is the safety factor. I mean, when I say safety, you wouldn't wanna pick a dandelion in an area where someone was spraying.
Correct. Correct.
Or something like that.
And then and there's the the third consideration.
I just took one of the products we make off the market, which is Indian pipe tincture, and not because Wow.
We as herbalists have over harvested it. But in the areas where we have harvested before, they they did been disappearing.
And I Idaho is a free free range state, and there's a lot of cattle.
And fifteen, twenty years ago in these areas, the cattle would tromp down, the Indian pipe and the other spirochetes and and the little, orchids that grew in these old growth areas along streams.
Mhmm.
And the next season, they the plants would be back, but all of a sudden, they didn't regenerate.
And I I suspect it's because of the, antibiotics and things in the urine and the feces of the cattle, because the the cilium that these plants feed on is so sensitive to environmental changes.
And so I'm seeing, large colonies of these disappear. And then from an herbalist standpoint and being a plant person over a people person, I've chosen to not harvest that particular plant any longer.
Right. Wow. Okay. That's that's really that's that's a I mean, I I sorry.
I'm a little stumped here because I just I guess I get sad when I hear stories like You know?
It's like, oh, man.
Yeah. It's just that the grief the grief comes up. You know? It's like, that sucks.
Yeah. It does.
But but that's also something that a backyard herbalist knows, you know, when you're harvesting in your own area and you're only using the plants within, with, from the forest, our region is within a sixty mile radius.
And so you you notice things like this. You're you're observant.
You can't help but be when you're out there, so much of the time with the plants. You can't help but notice when an area is stressed and you and you can't help but wonder why.
So then, I think what I would like to talk about now is, like you said, you were under snow there still. Right? Right. Snow was in February. A lot of snow.
And you can access, let's see, like, willow and fir.
So right now in winter, maybe there's some things people may not realize that they could, you know, go out and harvest now and use. So I was wondering how you would, if you could talk about maybe willow and grand fir, a couple of Rocky Mountain trees and and is this the time of year you go out in Harvey's?
Yes. The the cottonwood buds are perfect right now. The willow, since we're having a warming trend now, the sap is rising, so we go out and bite the willow.
We're looking for a a taste like you did the back end of a skunk. That means the salicide is at its highest level.
And so we rate each willow that each willow patch, we rate from a one to to ten, and we harvest nothing below an eight.
So we're harvesting the willow now.
We're also harvesting the chokecherry, and that's when you go out and you bite, the chokecherry. And it's sometimes hard to differentiate between that and serviceberry except for the taste in the bark. And the bark tastes like you bit into a bitter almond.
So we learn You know I have never heard doing this before.
So biting the like, is it like a branch?
You just put a bunch of a piece of the branch.
You bite a piece of the bark and taste it and judge it.
And can you talk about willow and and then choke cherry and, like, what you put them in or what you use them for?
Willow bark, basically, we use it for the painkilling, you know, for headaches.
It's great for sciatica, any kind of achy joints, flu like symptoms.
It's also a bitter, so it's a good digestive aid.
The chokecherry has a a constituent that actualize actually tranquilizes the trachea.
That's the that's in the bitter almond flavor. That's, means you have the strong constituents in there that does that.
Mhmm.
So, mostly we use the chokecherry in cough syrups and cough formulas and, recommended after, somebody has had productive cough and now they're in the dry cough stage. The chokecherry will stop that dry cough.
Wow. And you're, and you make tinctures or syrups, sir?
We we tincture it, and then we add the tincture to a honey or sugar base to make the syrup.
Uh-huh.
That's great.
The the the biting of the branch thing, what did you come oh, is that just a is this just some I just just a kind of a new thing for me. So did you just kinda start doing that at some point? Yes.
Well, I You get that?
I read a book, I think it's Scientific Validation of Medicinal Plants. I believe that's the title.
Mhmm.
And it gave Willow such a low rating.
And, I kinda started doing a little research on that. And because willow bark again was wild harvested, I figured, that the wild harvesters would not be testing for the the strength of the bark because the bark and I started going around and biting different batches of of willow to to kinda test it for that skunkiness because I knew, in this in January or February, early March, you go outside one day and the whole air would smell skunky even though the skunk skunks are still under the ground, and it would willow. And then that I knew knew that the strongest part of of the season the strongest part of the willow is when the fats rising.
When the, thalassides are the strongest in the bark. And so I would start biting the trees, and I would find that even on the same hillside, you had ten different willows. Each one would have a slightly different flavor. So I started teaching the apprentices that, in order to get the best, tincture, you had to get closest to that skunk taste.
And That's they get a kick out of that.
Well, you know, it just really gets you to learn the individual trees too, like, in an area and not just see them for just, you know, just random trees that they're individuals in the community.
Individuals.
Another plant that is so distinctive is the western mugwort. You can go in into, an area where there's a whole bunch of western mugwort, and you, rub the different leaves from the different, patches.
Same genus, same species, but some of them have more of a, menthol scent. Some are oilier and have a a more essential oil scent. Some are pretty bland. Some have intermingled with sagebrush and have a rank scent, and it's all within the same genus and species and all within twenty yards of one another.
So you're not just going through and picking all, you know, various western mugwort.
You're really taking your time and sensing every one of them that you're That's right.
Every every patch, every plant.
And if we're looking for, certain if we're looking for something for a smoke mixture, we want a certain plant. If we're looking for something, that you're gonna ingest, we want a a milder plant.
So we go around and and harvest, what what we need to harvest from the same colony, but with a certain target of how that plant's gonna be used so that we get the ones that have the right, balance of constituent.
K.
K.
So when you are harvesting, like, let's say, go back, like, willow or chokecherry, Are you most of the time just selectively taking certain branches from the tree? So, you know, the or or ones that have recently fallen or how are you doing, you know, harvesting sustainably?
Oh, we like to harvest tree. And after the snow is broken branches, it's good to go out and recycle, but that's not always optimal.
Mhmm.
So what we do is every time we approach a tree, we imagine it as our favorite apple tree or cherry tree or if you're partial to peach.
Whatever tree, you imagine that is your tree in your yard, and you prune it as you would your favorite fruit tree.
So you look for branches where the snow might fall too heavily and split it, and so then you you take that that branch that would be split from it, and and you prune it gently.
And you only take a couple of branches or tips from each each tree that you visit.
And you're probably finding that the trees that you harvest from are probably the healthiest ones in the area.
They are. They're they're very, robust. Yes.
So you're able to get this medicine from the tree and even then and give back by by making the tree healthier.
Right. Yeah.
That's encouraging.
That's that's the perfect balance of being symbiotic with with the plants.
So I guess in another level of wildcrafting, not just knowing the plant, but just knowing how it grows or maybe being mindful about what you think you can do to make the plant community thrive more. Right?
Right. Yeah. That we do that when we harvest loyal plants.
No. Those are the plants, like the, formation dissectum and air leaf alternate and osha.
It's more, thinning the smaller ones away from the larger to make stronger colonies rather than going and taking the largest plant and the most robust.
And so you're thinning so if you're a in a lomatium community, you're you're looking for smaller ones to dig.
Right. The ones not the most robust ones or the ones that are crowded together.
Mhmm. Now what have you noticed about that?
Say it's a balsam root or lomatium community, Oregon grape or whatever, like, that what you've done that work and how the overall plant communities are doing better? Like, are they looking healthier?
And Well, it's it's difficult to tell.
They do look they do look healthier. The larger ones continue to grow large.
Mhmm. But a lomatium root isn't even harvestable until five to seven years after seed germination. So, again, we're we harvest we're fortunate to have, some cattle ranchers that have private property that the cows don't care for their lomation, and they're more than happy to have us come and and dig it up. In other areas where, it's in the wild, we're we're extremely cautious about. We we harvest from the edge of the banks where they're gonna fluff off because they like to grow on hillsides.
Mhmm.
And, we love to take drives after a big rainstorm and and look for mudslides where we can just pick roots off the split road.
But, in areas where we've we've been, the plants that thrive seem to be putting on bigger seed heads, and and they're they're definitely larger and more robust.
But it takes five to seven years to even see that difference.
Yeah. How do you know if it's the five to seven year mark? You just know it from because you've seen it once and you just look for plants that have similar characteristics. I mean, are you or are you just, like, keeping an eye on certain individuals over time?
Or Yeah. We keep an eye on certain individuals. We we often, revisit harvest areas not to harvest but to observe.
Really? Wow. And you do this with, like, your premises?
Or and, like, how do you keep track of all it's a lot of plans.
Well, we have a a harvesting, cycle.
Certain areas that we we go back and visit regularly Mhmm. But not necessarily to harvest.
Right.
We might be harvesting skullcap flowers, but it's in the same region that we, earlier in the spring, had harvested lomatium.
So you can kinda go back and check up on how it's going.
And as I said, we we never harvest the second time in colonies of browns peony. That's a once in a a once in a lifetime harvest, basically.
Yeah. Tell us more about that, the peony. What what would both people use a peony for?
It's a a Brown's peony. It's a, smooth muscle relaxant.
So it it's good for, cramping, menstrual cramping. It's also can be used for, say, if you have, angina attack, it will relax the, blood vessels going into the heart that are constricting.
It'll relax that. It's also, great for neuralgia pain, as an oil rubbed diabetic rubbing the oil on their feet.
It's also good for neuralgia pain taken internally.
It's a very underused plant, probably because it's not indigenous in a lot of areas.
Right.
But if but if you're live in an area, you might find that you have plants like this that can be used for a lot of other things Right.
That may not be popular, may not be the ones that are sold at the health food store or whatever, but are nonetheless are ones to get to know.
They're the ones in your backyard.
The ones in your backyard. And so yeah. So peony. That's that's, Brown's peony.
Wow. Okay. So well, since we were talking about lomatium, I think a lot I love lomatium. It's a plant I one of the earlier plants I got to know because though it doesn't grow in my bioregion in Western Washington, it does grow on the eastern side, and it's something a plant that you know, I've never actually gone and harvested because I I I had for, actually, the person at the herb conference, like, Michael Polarsky, and he has been interviewed on this show.
And anytime I ever went to a conference, he always would be selling, you know, a big chunk of root, which would last me forever Right.
And making a tincture. So I never had the need to go out and personally harvest, though I have gone over on the other side of the mountains and observed them and checked them out so I knew what they look like because I was so fascinated by it. But could you talk about lomatium? Because I think it's I think it's, you know, outside of a north or western bioregion may not be one that's well known.
It's, it's a very strong antiviral, and that's basically what we use it for, in, antiviral throat spray. And there's a tincture.
It's, great straight across the board. It seems to to, take care of everything from herpes to to flu viruses.
We use it for women that have abnormal pap smears.
And I actually have a physician that sends, her clients up to me to become students because, in the herb business, I don't have any clients or patients. Everybody that comes to the studio becomes a student.
And so, it's we make use the lomatium and oil for that. And it's I've just seen it do amazing things. It's also a great, herb to take when you get shingles and start feeling that first symptoms, the first symptoms of shingles, lonation will greatly reduce the incidence of the shingle attack and the discomfort. So it's, it's just a excellent antiviral.
You know, it's funny because I I I think I probably knew that from the because Steve does Steven Booner was it or is it Michael Moore? I think Michael Moore's book has yeah. The Northwest one. I think maybe that's where I first learned about it.
I I I I was more introduced to it as a something for coughs Mhmm.
And which has been very effective, or when I have a cold. Well, of course, that makes sense. It's an antiviral. But, but, yeah, some because it's always worked well to help the cold once you go have it.
Right. As long as as long as it's in a a viral infection and not bacterial.
Right. Right. Which is why we always kinda keep it in our house since used a lot every year.
K. Lomatium.
Lomatium dissectum. There's about thirty different Dissectum.
Lomatiums in the Rocky Mountain, but it's the dissectum we use, which is the largest of the lomation species.
It didn't really and and and doesn't seem to really get a popular common name. So it's we just call it Lomache for a common name.
Awesome wild carrot plant.
We'll make one up. That's not good. We're not gonna use that, but we might think of another one.
The ovation's good because it it's the king of them all. Yeah.
So you mentioned, balsam root as well, and that's one that I have admired and seen a lot, over on the eastern side of my state, but I have not actually used it. It sounds like it's a very medicinal balsam root. So what, what are your ways that you like to use balsam root?
The early balsam root, we use just as, you would use, echinacea.
It's a great immune system enhancer. It, boosts up the white blood cell count. It's great for people that are recovering from chemotherapy, and other, you know, immune system offenses.
Mhmm.
But, basically, I recommend it. It's, it doesn't it's a, it grows on the western side of the Rockies where echinacea grows on the east side. So I call it our our our side of the Rockies, echinacea, even though it's not the same genus or species, but it seems to do the same.
Right.
And the thing I love about that plant is I like to ask a group of students or apprentices what they would imagine the root of the early balsam would look like. And then, tell them it's gonna take about forty five minutes if they go after the biggest plant that they see for them to get the root.
Have you dug a root?
No. I haven't.
It's a salad.
Yeah. And especially because, like, where you are in those drier places, it's drier. So it's harder to take up something out of that soil.
It looks like a tree a tree root. It's got a thick corrugated bark on the outside, and it's very woody and and stringy on the inside.
Oh, wow.
And it's it's the most difficult route that we work with.
Do you, when you say, like, similar to echinacea, even echinacea is infection fighting Mhmm.
Wow. So it enhances immune system function. Great for oh, that's great to know.
Yep.
Wow. See, I I personally get more excited by by by herbs like this. Like, I see, you know, it's like, oh, this is cool. You know? Like, learn a new plant, go on an adventure, go and find it, pick it. What's great about you is you can learn about these Rocky Mountain plants, but we'll talk about it later too, but by just apprenticing or going to your place and learn all about them.
That's great.
You also mentioned the, well, actually, going back to the balsam root, when you're processing it, just are you just, you know, is it is it hard to to chop up in in in Yeah.
It stincture?
The biggest one, the apprentices, Doug, I have more common sense, was thirty pounds.
But, it it it has a lot of dirt and rocks, and so you have to scrub it. We actually take it to a car wash and hold it off with a high pressure.
Use what you got.
Yeah. We when we get several of them, we we, load them in the trunk and we haul them off to the car wash.
And then Do you, like, put them in back of a flatbed and go through the car wash?
Or what do you The kind where you you wash your own car.
Oh, the one with the big jet that Yeah.
From here to something going.
That that's yeah. That's that's what we use to get them washed, when we get more than one root. And then you you have to take a hammer, and you hammer it because you have to break all that bark off, which is, which is the part that contains the resin.
And then you have this, inner, wood like, fibrous part that you you grab the very end because it comes to pointy ends and you pull it lengthwise, and it usually takes two of us to to pull it apart. And then you you pull that apart, and then you, tincture the whole thing.
So it it's, four routes would take three apprentices probably four hours to process that way.
Woah.
And that's making, like, maybe how much, like, a gallon jug or something to sink here?
That would make probably, about, seven gallons.
Oh, gosh. Four roots?
Yeah. They got the big ones. Seven.
So your average person for, might only need a small one.
Yeah. A a medium size root would do, family probably a year or two.
And so even though you said the resin is in that outer part, you still tinkering that whole thing.
Right. Right. Wow. You want the full spectrum.
Is it similar type of thing with lomatium?
It's because I always I imagine A lomatium is is easier to dig, and it has thin bark on it.
It's very thin, paper thin.
And it has a wonderful fragrance. All roots have a great fragrance, but the a lomation smells like a lotion, and it weeps, and where it's knicks. And it it's soft, and you can slice it with a sharp knife, like, into small pieces. So it's much easier to process, except some people have and I'm one, has, get contact dermatitis from that oil that peeps out.
Oh, yeah?
And I think because I've handled so many for so many years.
Is this similar type of thing as, what am I trying to think? The other carrot family one, the big one, the big leaves or big flower big leaves of flowerheads. What is it? Cow parsnip?
Cow parsnip.
Is it a similar type of substance you think that's causing the dermatology?
I don't know. I think it's I think it's different. It's it's definitely a different feel and we had Right.
One of our apprentices was working with it for the first time, and he was slicing it and got it you know, rubbed his face with, with his hands, get it got his hair out of his face or whatever. And his whole face and his eyes almost swelled shut and his whole face welled up from handling. But he was handling a lot of it. He was handling probably twenty, thirty pounds of it, slicing it up and processing.
Well, at least he wouldn't get a virus.
Right. But he was a mess for about two weeks.
Oh, no. Yeah. So be careful, folks.
Yeah. Use gloves.
Use gloves. There's good tips, you know, good tips. I and her a book I got, years ago was, that kinda had some good wild crafting tips was, Gregory Tilford's book that was kind of wild craft centered, from earth to herbalist, I think. And I liked it had a little section, like, a little tips to when you're going wild crafting certain plants and stuff, and that was helpful. And one of those was if I remember arnica was, I was going up and gathering arnica to take the the the jar, and the men's room with me up in the hills, you know, to gather it because it could all get all, you know, seeded by the time I took it down, you know, in my bag or Right. Which I thought was really interesting. And so I actually did that.
I took my my stuff with me, and then I made my arnica oil and my tincture and stuff up in Right.
In the field.
Up in up in the field. Yeah. That was fun.
Yeah.
That that would be Up in, North Cascades mountains, how pine areas.
So, you know, I I'm just fascinated by your website because I love that.
And and you gotta everyone, you gotta visit this, darcy from the forest dot com, and look look through Darcy's all the sections here, syrups, teas, infused oils, and and, but I I like I'm on the tincture page here, and what's what's really great is you can just see the creativity of what one can do with plants that grow around them.
And it if you click, click on the details on the second page, it takes you down to a lot more information on each plant too. I don't know if you found that.
Oh, yeah. I'm doing that right now. One that kinda caught my eye was Baneberry, and that's not one that people usually harvest.
Right.
And so tell us about Daneberry here because isn't it kinda considered one of your more, toxic plants?
The berries are toxic.
The berries?
We use the root, and we use, we don't use a lot of it, but we use it in our endocrine tonic and our hot spot formula.
It has a similar effect as black coal ash, although not, not exact, but a similar enough one to be useful for, hot flashes and and what I call women who've crossed over the moon, or passed over the moon that are no longer moon women and have certain hormone fluctuations, and, it helps with that a lot. But it's, barely taken alone. It's, mixed with other herbs.
I'm seeing, like go ahead. Sorry.
Oh, I thought you were keeping I'm sorry. I I thought I interrupted you there for a second. Sorry.
Yeah. Like, I I just really fascinated. Even, Avens root. You know, avens is one a geom is one of these ones that you kinda see growing on the side of the road with, a lot of the weedy weedy species and stuff. And, and then here you are, you have a tincture of Avan's roots. I never would have could so tell me about avens roots. I'm just fascinated by this.
It's it's the avens that that grows in the boggy areas.
Mhmm.
And, you just you basically don't need a shovel. Most of the time, if it's in a wet area, you can just grab the base right down below where the stem connects to the root and pull the whole root up. And Mhmm. If you've never tasted one, you're gonna be in for a surprise.
Tastes just like cloves.
Really?
It's, yeah, very spicy. And it is one of the best things for diarrhea.
Really? Even better than, like, a blackberry root or something?
Much better. Much better. And it's, we have a lot of I have a lot of, business with, irritable bowel syndrome that uses it. And it's just you just clean the root, and it's got these long rootlets, and you just wrap it around the main root, let it dry, and then that's topped up when you need it as a tea. And usually, one cup of that tea will will stop the the, chronic diarrhea, but, that people have when they have irritable bowel syndrome.
And it's, I don't I wouldn't travel overseas without a couple roots in my bag.
Just the roots? You don't even take in the tinctures with you.
You're just taking the roots with me.
Yeah. I'll take the root root with me. But it's made into a tincture for convenience sake. Although, I really, when I take it, I take it as a tea. But mind you, I don't take very many herbs because I don't get I don't get the need for them. I'm not I'm rarely, rarely ill.
Mhmm.
And so let me well, you're staying healthy by by using herbs as well. Right? I mean, like Well more tonic ones?
Or I stay healthy by eating a good diet.
And Mhmm.
I probably there's very few tonic herbs. I didn't when I think about it, take triple berry, and I do take horsetail and nettle when I think about it.
And when I think about it, I take lion's mane capsules.
Those are the only ones that I I take on any kind of regular basis and buy regular maybe once or twice a month because I don't think about it enough times.
Oh. It's always there, but I always feel that, you know, I'm sixty five, and I feel totally healthy.
Right.
And I don't think I need to take anything until I feel less than healthy.
So being an herbalist is a great health care routine too. So there's diet, exercise, and being an herbalist.
Right.
Keeps you out in the fresh air, active, digging stuff, connected to the connected to the earth.
Hiking out. Yeah. Hiking a lot. Hauling bag back bags of stuff from, you know, long hikes into the woods. Yeah. That keeps you vital.
I get less vital in the winter because they tend to hibernate.
But Like now?
Uh-huh.
You probably feel a little bit of itchy spring now. I'm just kinda like, it's coming. It's coming. I don't see it, but it's alright.
I haven't even seen any snow this year. I'm getting lots of rain on me right now. I mean, we can probably hear it in the microphone. I mean, listen to this.
It's I have a metal roof on the little a little tiny office in my backyard. I got this kind of a shed I work in. It's kind of a metal roof.
Not very glamorous, but, you know.
This is an herbal show.
Actually, I I like the sound of rain.
Yeah. Alright.
The snow kinda creeps up on you.
You go to bed at night, and you get up in the morning, and it's all over the ground.
Here? Oh my god. Well, just come on visit anytime you want.
Lots of wind too. I'm up on a little tiny peninsula in the ocean, so we get lots of winds and lots of rain, but not not not too much snow.
So, you know, before we I wanna ask some questions about your, you know, what you what you do there at your place, apprenticeships, and your stuff, and your website and all. But, I just wanted to the one more plant here that piqued my interest, I kinda seem to be talking about a lot of trees too, but it was alder.
And alder is one that's common for a lot of people.
At least I think it is. I mean, I I live lots around me.
Yeah. It's a very widespread plant.
Yeah. It's a very widespread plant. So, you have so many cool things you do with plants and tricks and ways of using. What can you tell us about Alder?
Well, the green cones are good for allergies, pollen related allergies. And the tincture of the green cones, we make, a tincture of them for amoeba infestations.
And then the bark and catkins have different constituents, and that's an antibiotic for, mainly bacterial infection.
So if the lomation isn't working, we recommend somebody switch to a bacterial, you know, if they're ill.
It's, the I always teach people that take young kids out into the woods. I teach them the older because if they one of the kids comes back to the group with a half eaten mushroom, they don't know what it is. Mhmm. A two inch strip of of fresh alder bark will take care of it because it will empty the stomach quite quickly.
So it's a good thing to know for poisoning.
And then when you dry the bark, it has a different takes on a different constituent to which helps the body digest fats and, you know, metabolize that.
And it improves the the nutrient absorption of what you eat.
So if people have trouble, like, digesting fats or if they ate, a half a rack of barbecued pork ribs. They'd probably like to have some, capsules of dried alder bark afterwards.
Wow. Okay. Is it is there any Infiniti for helping with, like, colds or flu or anything like that?
Alder?
Yeah.
It it probably does with, the antibiotic action. I don't we don't use it for that. But Mhmm. A lot of things I've learned from herbs have come from the student. People will contact me and say, boy, I sure got good results for such and such using such and such, and I thought you use such and such for use that herb for such and such. Oh, that's interesting.
So I've learned a lot.
I know it's I know elders used a lot, medicinally was was a was a important medicinal plant in native, populations around the Pacific Northwest. I just didn't really look much into it. I just or knew that it was. I just wasn't sure.
Uh-huh.
It was.
I figured maybe that had something to do with it.
I don't know.
You know, is on herb mentor dot com, I remember as I I ask, if I'm gonna have when before I do one of these podcast, I I ask questions, and I I and this is kind of a more last minute interview we put together here.
And so I I was kinda last minute in putting it up too. So I did we did get a question that I see here. And and, it's kind of related to, to the peony we were talking before is Abby, and, she I'll just read the whole thing that she writes. So it says Darcy Williamson has a beautiful and interesting website, and she does. One of her products caught my eye since it, brought back a vivid childhood memory of taking a rafting trip on the Salmon River. I would like to hear Darcy talk in in about her salmon river rafter sore muscle limit liniment. That's a mouthful.
I have never seen a living pee, peony and wondered if this plant was easy to find in Idaho. Also, would this beautiful peony grow in a garden like cultivated peonies? A lot of questions here, but, also, what's the best season, for harvesting? So that was the question.
K. The browns peony depends on it it will grow in zone three through six.
Mhmm.
And it likes, fairly it it likes to be dry, but it it doesn't do well in a garden setting. But if it would do well on the per perimeter of a garden setting in, fairly dry soil, it likes, a lot of decomposed, granite.
It prefers that, you know, mixed in with rock and soil.
Mhmm.
Okay. It seeds you know, it sprouts well from seeds, but, again, it will take five to seven years or longer to get any harvestable root.
The best time to harvest it, we do most of our harvesting in March just as the young green shoots come up. But if, we look if it looks like we haven't harvested enough to fulfill our season, we will harvest it in the autumn after the plant has died back.
And we also harvest the seeds and, try to establish colonies in like areas.
And it's used in in the, for mussel products because it does penetrate, and it does relax muscles, tight muscles around the shoulders like, rafters yet where they get behind the neck and behind the shoulder.
It really helps with those, particular muscles and the back of the upper back and lower back.
Well, great. Great. I hope that Yeah. And But she was And and it looks like she's in Massachusetts.
Oh, okay.
Looks like. So that's interesting. So, just yeah. So maybe she was looking to grow it. Or maybe she moved and didn't change a thing on the website. Who knows?
So, so Idaho, can you talk about your apprenticeships you do and, like, you know, how that all works?
Alright.
Is that your main reason of way main method or way of teaching classes? Or do you just do, like, little classes, or is it mostly through longer term studies?
It's actually an apprentice program that's on Wednesdays.
Mhmm. And I have, a bunk room for out of area people if they wanna come. Like, right now in the, studio, I have, two apprentices that came down from Moscow, Idaho that came yesterday, and they'll stay several days and work in the studio.
And it's a work and learn program. There's no tuition.
Their labor is their tuition.
And all the products that you see on the website is a result basically of the apprentice program. The apprentice the the everything that's made supports the program.
Wow.
And so the apprentices have, certain things that they learn to, advance on up to, a senior apprentice.
They have to master all of these different things, and it whatever time it takes for them to do that. We've had some just graduate that have taken ten years. Some can graduate in eight months to a senior, and then they get a big party. They don't get a certificate, and then they they get added responsibility. They're expected to do plant monographs. They're, expected to, hopefully, start their own line of products, which I help promote, and I'll help them develop that line of products if they'd like. Or they're all expected to teach, And that's, everyone that graduates and becomes a senior is expected to become a teacher.
So there Do you do you have people that move to your town or where you are to be part of this specifically?
Because you are kinda out there.
Yeah. So this just seems like something.
Yeah.
Basically, I've I've had them come in as far as Florida. I had somebody come in from Georgia, but they stayed a couple weeks and worked and learned. But it really, is best if you're regional because you're learning backyard plants.
The plants in Georgia and Florida are totally different from what we have here.
And the concept is to learn what's at hand, what you can go out and harvest and teach your neighbors, your children, your community to harvest and prepare and use. And so the apprentices from Northern Idaho are doing classes up there.
Mhmm.
And I've I've, taught a couple hundred apprentices, and as far as I know, they're all teaching on some level.
Wow.
Doing, you know, some form of teaching in a community or, have giving classes.
Then I have, a teaching venue at my other place at Maven's Haven. It's sixty miles from here on the Salmon River at a lower elevation.
And we do Equinox herbalist gatherings where the apprentices put together their own programs, their own classes, and set their class limit and their price limit, and then they get all the money that comes in for teaching that class.
And it's kind of a venue for them to practice their skills and they put So then as a business, you make your money from selling the products, like, off your website.
And Right. Yeah.
And that that's that's basically a byproduct. Before I, had the apprentice program, I had just a handful of products.
But the more apprentices come in, the more we learn, the more products.
So it's it continues to grow.
And The more brown jars of things you have brewing Right.
A different job.
Brown jars. But also because there's no labor cost, that's passed on to the consumer.
So that the price is good.
This is a very reasonably priced tinctures you have here for four ounce. Your four ounces of of tinctures here, like, cost the same as one ounce tincture.
Yeah. In most places.
Yeah. That's, and I'm hoping more herbalists establish, and that's why I started a Facebook page with it where we show what we get every Wednesday.
As kind of to show, what we do, and hopefully, others can can pick up on that. And I think there's a lot of, there's excellent herbal schools all over the place that are patterned in different ways.
But there's Plus, I'm fascinated.
Every interview I do, a a herbalist like yourself runs a program or whatever. It's it's amazing. There's no two ways people run a program the same. You know?
Yeah. And that's good. That's good.
But I'm fascinated by your model. It's amazing. I mean, for being such a a a, you know, self proclaimed, like, quiet, shyer person, you've done quite a bit.
Okay.
The apprentice program has has been probably the biggest growth I've ever had. I mean, it is it is, opened up my world.
And it it Well, heck. It's, What a what a what a great way to bring the world to you.
Yeah.
It's, definitely symbiotic.
Yeah. That's and so, your books, you can where do you prefer people check out the books you have? Because you you have the the two well, you have other ones too, but you're like, for example, the the, Rocky Mountain Herb's book that, I'm looking for. Where's where's where's he I lost my exact title.
I may even own the book. I'm just you know, when I'm in the middle of these interviews, I'm telling you, I just can't keep my head straight on everything.
But the, Healing Plants of the Rocky Mountains and and I know it's available on Amazon. Was that where you tell people to go get it, or do you have sell it, or is it on your site?
Let's see.
Do you know? Pardon?
Alright. There you go. Sorry. I mean, I just lost you for a second. Yes. You can. I always recommend folks purchase books and all from herbalists from their own site because they, they benefit more that way financially.
And Darcy's book, like Healing Plants from the Rocky Mountains, and I'm looking here, you have other, books and things you've put together, CD ROMs of your newsletters. You can get all on on darcy from the forest dot com.
And, and the products as well. Right? So everything is here.
Right.
So I I I I I really encourage everyone listening to go to darcy from the forest dot com because just just you can learn so much how creative you can be in making remedies just clicking through all of the all of the, remedies from oils and syrups, tinctures, salves, more that are on this site. Even bulk herbs. So we talked about, like, lomatium and and arrow root.
You can you can purchase you can purchase those two here.
So that's awesome. And find out about the apprentice program. Right?
Right.
Okay. So anything else you wanna mention before we wrap it up?
No.
I think Did I get it all?
I think we covered a lot of ground. Great.
I mean We sure did.
I know. It's amazing how quickly the time goes by. I even forgot to look over and I go, oh, my gosh. I've been talking we've been talking for seventy minutes and it felt it felt like ten.
So, again, you can visit Darcy Williams at at, DarcyfromtheForest.com. Darcy Williamson, thank you so much for joining us on Herb Mentor Radio.
Well, thank you for the opportunity.
Visit LearningHerbs.com for free courses, ebooks, and monthly lessons. You'll also find the herbal remedy kit in Wildcraft, an herbal adventure game. Herb Mentor Radio is produced for HerbMentor.com, our community mentoring site. Herb Mentor Radio is copyright LearningHerbs.com, LLC. All rights reserved. Thank you so much for listening. We really appreciate it.
