Red Clover

Red Clover

Scientific Name: Trifolium pratense

Part Used: Flowering tops

In a single conversation I had about clover not so long ago, the people I was chatting with told me that a four-leafed clover is good luck if you place it in your hat or under your pillow and bad luck if you find one and leave it unpicked. I also heard that someone who tries to pick a four-leafed clover in the moonlight will go insane because the good luck of the clover reverses itself.

What's with the four-leafed clover? Along with losing plant medicine knowledge, we have, for the most part, forgotten plant lore. A couple of hundred years ago, everybody knew the magical powers attributed to plants – what flowers would make your true love love you back, what seed thrown over your shoulder would bring male children or stop the children from coming. Now, when only a few of these folk beliefs remain, it is strange that even the most urbane of us, if asked about four-leafed clover, will quickly affirm that it is good luck.

What’s more, this is not a belief held only by North Americans: people everywhere say the same thing. Isn’t it peculiar that the odd, four-fingered leaf is considered a wonderful find all over the world? I believe that the litany of magical powers attributed to clovers is due to the undeniable healing powers they exhibit. The conviction that red clover is a tonic to the whole body, strengthening and giving power to the person who drinks it, is almost as universal as the belief in a lucky four-leaf clover.

Traditionally, cancer, heart disease, lung disease, and any other serious illnesses were treated with red clover.

Whether we admit it or not, the United States is still in many ways a colony of England. We may have severed our political affiliations some time ago, but our cultural affiliations cannot be broken. Clover first came to North America with the English, and their descendants have continued its use. Other British colonies, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa included, also received clover and the knowledge surrounding it, and in all those countries today people use clover for healing.

When the English colonists came to North America, they moved from urban settings to a wilderness unlike any they had ever known. It was filled with disease and not a lot of white people. The patches of Englishmen were far and few between, and a settlement with access to a European doctor was a rare phenomenon. People had to take care of themselves.

The main "doctor" was usually the mother or grandmother in the house. It was her responsibility to meet the needs of her sick children or grandchildren, and so mothers made it their business to learn what plants would take a fever away or keep it from coming on in the first place. When a daughter married and went off to an even more remote region where land could be had for the asking, her mother wrote down the remedies that had kept her family alive in a book which the daughter carried with her. In a time when real illness usually meant death, this book was perhaps one of the most sacred items in a woman’s possession next to the Bible, for as soon as the babies started coming, their health was dependant on their mother’s knowledge of healing plants.

It is during this period in colonial America that we see red clover coming to the fore. Clover, which may be a native of the British Isles, had been known in England as a healing plant and as a blood tonic or purifier since who knows when. The notion was that if you were seriously ill, clover could bring you around.

In the absence of modern diagnosis, people looked at disease externally, and they used the term consumption to describe what they sometimes saw happening: the body was consumed or eaten away by disease. Sometimes a similar condition was called cancer, and in both cases clover was used to correct the situation. In some areas, this practice has lingered on into the present. Take a look at this cancer cure from the hills of Tennessee: "Place two to three teaspoons of red clover blossom in one cup of boiling water, steep mixture until a tea is formed. Drink one cup a day." Traditionally, cancer, heart disease, lung disease, and any other serious illnesses were treated with red clover.

Like Englishmen at home, the colonials were tea drinkers. In England, people customarily drank tea in the late afternoon. In the colonies, they were too involved with survival to take a break in the afternoon, so they drank their tea with lunch. Because not everyone could afford the imported beverage, tea substitutes were used, and tea made of clover was one of the most popular. Folks also used to make a "spring bracer" or tonic with clover and mint to keep the body in good stead during the all-important planting season. They ate the spring clover greens as salad and pot greens, and made jellies of the red blooms, all to stay healthy.

Getting back to our goal of making a tonic at home to keep us well, clover was one of the most popular ingredients in tonics in the 1850s. Boiled in water and sweetened with honey, it created the base for many widely sold preparations.

In a book written in 1917, Health From Field and Forest, we see clover listed as one of the best blood purifiers, especially in the case of cancer. The volume was essentially a catalogue of items for sale, one of which was that crazy old "Compound No. 7." Though clearly a commercial and not a scholarly undertaking, Health From Field and Forest gives you an idea of what people thought about clover at the turn of the century:

Medical scientists have long recognized the value of red clover blossoms as a purifying agent for the blood, particularly in cases of cancerous humors, tumors, carbuncles, and the like, and not only recommend but use them. Knowing this, we have chosen German red-clover, carefully picked and cured in a way to retain its full strength, as a base for our "Red Clover Compound," adding in smaller proportions herbs with qualities like to itself, each serving to bring out and emphasize the remedial virtues of the others. Taken freely, as a tea, it purifies the blood and tones up the entire system; and thus by removing the cause, it reaches the very root of the trouble, curing cancers, abscesses, tumors, and other diseases which would never gain a foothold but for an impure condition of the blood. As a remedy for cancer, Compound No. 7 is specific; and as a flesh-producer, if one is for any reason below normal weight, it has no equal. Many use it for this purpose alone. In taking this compound for any of the virulent troubles named one must be persistent and regular. It is not a "cure-while-you-wait" remedy, not a severe purgative which affords seeming relief only to leave the system weakened and debilitated, but a mild, natural tonic, doing its good work steadily and surely without harm or reaction.

It’s no wonder that the author specified German red clover. Red clover was, and continues to be, very popular as a healing plant in Germany, and the Mennonites who came to North and South America to escape religious persecution in that country brought this information with them. To this day in the American communities, they use red clover, known as rhoda glae blumma, to treat whooping cough, croup, and cancer of the stomach, and its roots to treat diphtheria.

Half a world away, the Chinese likewise revere clover, hsun tsao, as a tonic, and they draw the sap to treat colds and influenza. At one time in Chinese history, the dried plant was burned at altars as an incense. If you wanted to have a chat with the gods, the way to invite them down was to light a little clover. It was also worn in the girdle to expel any bad vibes that might be hanging around. Contemporary Chinese researchers don’t have much to say about bad vibes, but they have proven that red clover kills certain viral and fungal infections, has estrogen-like functions, and is an antispasmodic and expectorant.

Red clover is another one of our tonic ingredients that needn’t be bought or raised. Take a car trip out to the countryside in summer and collect the red blossoms with wild abandon – any country road will provide you with more than you could ever need. One cautionary note: insects that sting, otherwise known as bees, are fond of clover, and are apt to be near. Give each clover plant a good shake before you start collecting, or you are likely to get a sharp surprise on one of your fingers which could conclude your venture prematurely. When you get your cache home, spread the blossoms out over a large table to dry. This should take place within a week. Once they are crisply dried, put them in sealed jars, and store the jars in a dark location until you are ready to make your tonic.