A herbarium of 82 magical plants and trees and 24 fungi — rulers, seasons, folklore and clear safety warnings — with a blend maker for sachets, incense, oils and washes, when to gather each plant, the festivals that use it, and your own herb cabinet with the blends it can make. Two pictures open the herbarium: the gatherer's year, a wheel of what is in season each month with the festivals on its rim, and Culpeper's garden, seven planetary beds whose leaves show how safe each herb is. Grind a sachet or incense blend yourself in a mortar, working the pestle round until the leaves are powder, sunwise or against the sun as your aim asks.
mixer19 lessons explain the ideas behind this tool.
A few things to do with this tool, from a first try to a habit. Each one you tick counts as practice for the day, towards your streak and milestones.
Kept in this browser. Notes you send to the journal are kept there as well.
Safety first. This is a guide to magical lore and external, symbolic use — sachets, altars, incense and charms. It is not a foraging guide or medical advice. Never eat or drink a wild plant or fungus because of anything here: many are poisonous, some deadly ones look like edible ones, and herbs can interact with medicines and pregnancy.
Each month carries a leaf for every plant here that flowers or is gathered then in Britain. The eight festivals stand on the rim. Tap a month.
January · now
Green: kitchen-safe · gold: use with care · red: poisonous or deadly · violet: controlled. Tap a plant to find it below.
Culpeper's English Physitian (1652) gave nearly every herb a ruling planet. Here they grow in seven beds round a sundial, one for each planet, each leaf coloured by how safe the plant is. Tap a bed to show only its herbs.
☽ The bed of Moon · 5
He matched herb to illness by sympathy, a herb of the planet that caused it, or by antipathy, a herb of the opposing planet. Lore only: not medical advice.
Jasminum officinale · ☽ Moon (later tradition) · Water
Moon work, love and prophetic dreams.
Its scent is strongest at night, which made it a flower of the Moon. In India it is woven into garlands for weddings and the gods.
Stones of the Moon →Moon in Correspondences →
Caution: Not the same as false jasmine (Gelsemium), which is deadly.
Botrychium lunaria · ☽ Moon (Culpeper) · Water
A Moon emblem; drawn or pictured rather than picked.
Its leaflets are shaped like half-moons. Culpeper repeats the old belief that it could open locks and pull the shoes from horses that trod on it.
Stones of the Moon →Moon in Correspondences →
Caution: Rare and declining; never pick it.
Papaver rhoeas · ☽ Moon (Culpeper) · Water
Sleep, dreams and remembrance of the dead.
Sacred to Hypnos, god of sleep, and to Demeter. The red poppy became the emblem of remembrance after the battlefields of the First World War.
Stones of the Moon →Moon in Correspondences →
Caution: Mildly poisonous; not to be eaten. Don't confuse with the opium poppy.
Santalum album · ☽ Moon (later tradition) · Water
Meditation and prayer incense; a calm base for any blend.
Used for millennia in Hindu and Buddhist worship and for carving sacred images.
Stones of the Moon →Moon in Correspondences →
Caution: Wild Indian sandalwood is threatened; buy from certified sustainable sources.
Salix alba · ☽ Moon (Culpeper) · Water
Wands, Moon work, grief and wishes tied into knots on its branches.
Associated with mourning ('wearing the willow'). Its bark gave salicin, the ancestor of aspirin.
Stones of the Moon →Moon in Correspondences →
Caution: The bark contains salicylates; not for anyone allergic to aspirin.
Greek and Roman medicine
Every plant is hot or cold and moist or dry, in a degree from one to four.
Sources: “Pharmacy of the Greeks and Romans”, PMC; Cunnan, “Degrees of heat”
Planetary rulers marked Culpeper are from The English Physitian (1652); elements and the rest follow later tradition, which varies. Seasons are typical for Britain. See also Planetary Herbs and Herbal Preparations.