Nootropic is the name for substances which are known as Smart Drugs because they enhance cognition. This one is bacopa monnieri, an aquatic perennial also praised for controlling blood sugar, enhancing mood, increasing attention span, normalizing blood pressure, improving liver function, and many more health benefits in addition to improving memory and reasoning. However, you might not want to try it because it tastes awful and like grapefruit, only possibly more so, it can potentiate the effect of other substances.
Dr. Edward of Global Healing Center is one of several health care professionals who have emphasized that some of the commercially available bacopa has been found to be contaminated by unsafe levels of cadmium and lead, so we should be sure our supply is organic. The best way I know of to know something is really organic is to grow my own. Fortunately, bacopa monierri is really easy to grow and according to most sources is efficacious when taken fresh. It is also easily available from aquarium supply stores under the names water hyssop or moneywort. It is pretty, especially when in bloom, and doesn’t take much care. When it outgrows the jar I cut the tops off and put them in filtered water in a new jar where they happily take root and do it all over again. Since I am away from my primary home for up to six months at a time, I just put some of it in a ziplock bag in water and take it with me when I am on the road. The rest of the time it sits on a window sill mostly submerged in a jar of water.
I don’t eat enough of it to get high, but I do snip off a few leaves to consume from time to time. They are extremely bitter, so there is little danger of getting an overdose.
#1
Here the flowers have turned withered and brown because I left this plant for months without topping off the water, but it is not in any danger.
I chose "Open List" by mistake, but decided to go ahead and see what that does. If you have a photo of a medicinal plant you grow and know how to add it here, please feel free!
#2 Clary Sage
Clary sage is reputed to have many medicinal uses. Some people use it to treat gas, indigestion, or other ailments of the digestive tract. It has also been used as an eyewash to help get foreign particles out of people's eyes. People actually used to put the seeds in their eyes to help remove these foreign objects. It also has other medicinal uses.
I currently have clary sage growing all over my garden. My original plant has reproduced and now I have its children not only in my flower beds but also in my lawn.
Wow Barb, due to that bug I could not comment under your #2 here. What a clear photo. Thanks for adding it. Does it taste like the sage we use in stuffing?
I’ve never tried using it in cooking. No need since I grow many other sages. I’m guessing it’s different. I don’t much like the smell of it when it’s blooming — a bit like a sweaty armpit.
Like limburger cheese? Sage has not done well for me indoors in hydro and I think I said my grapevine is the only thing I have growing in dirt, but actually I do have a few other things that I started as cuttings 7 or 8 years ago and have somehow managed to stay alive in triple digit weather when I am away (and my sprinkler system sometimes goes off) — a huge rosemary bush, a lovely plumbago, a tiny lilac which I did see bloom last year for the first time and bloomed again this year while I was away (would like to see it live as a nice friend who was dying asked me to adopt it from her,, and a volunteer oleander which apparently sprang forth from a seed dropped by a bird. I think my lemongrass has bit the dust.
Clary sage is not as bad as Limburger cheese. But K has taken to eating a lot of raw garlic every day now to kill his cold or allergies or whatever he has or thinks he has. I’m getting rather tired of the smell, but I don’t want to keep the windows open in this triple digit heat. Hope we get back down into the 90’s tomorrow as forecast.
I love both garlic and limburger cheese, but maybe not so much secondhand. You didn’t get my last 2 emails so I’ll PM you on here.
I’m a garlic man, myself…
I eat leeks (wild garlic) and/or garlic fresh almost every day. Just reading your comment I am picturing a whole bunch of garlic drizzled with melted butter after it comes out of the oven slow-roasted to perfection. I like garlic cooked or raw. Garlic is also a SuperFood, yayy!.
If you ask me, garlic is the undisputed king of vegetables
I will gladly second that motion.
Ave Allium Rex, first among vegetables!
How interesting to read about thee medicinal plants. Good for you and thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Carol, I really enjoy trying to interest other people in plants with high nutritional and/or medicinal value, especially if they are easy to grow.
I take a couple of herbal supplements that contain this herb. I guess I should do more research to see if the manufacturers use organic sources. Do you ever add it to food or does it make everything one would add it to taste terrible?
Yes, and yes, Barb. It would ruin a salad, but I float a few leaves in a sweet drink once in a while. Sugar cures anything it doesn’t kill.
Hi, Robin. It is very popular as decoration in fish tanks so a pet store might carry it. I bought mine online.
Very useful text. I have to find out if this plant is with me in Serbia. I would like to know it because I have Diabetes.