Hawthorn: The Herbalist's Go-To Heart Herb, Its History and Traditional Uses

If there is one herb that holds the heart in every sense of the word, it is Hawthorn. In this episode we take a deep and loving look at one of herbalism's most celebrated cardiotonic plants. From rich mythology to traditional Chinese medicine, from the stressed nervous system to the grieving heart, hawthorn shows up for all of it. Whether you are drawn to it for circulation, blood pressure, cold hands on winter mornings, or simply because your heart needs a little more love, this episode is for you. 

What's in this episode: 

• Why hawthorn is considered one of herbalism's greatest cardiotonic herbs, and why it took so long for the herbal tradition to catch on 
• The mythology of hawthorn: maypoles, the fae, infant cradles, and the Crown of Thorns 
• The secret Irish remedy that changed cardiac herbalism forever, and the doctor who kept it hidden until his death 
• What the Eclectic physicians finally had to say about hawthorn in the early 1900s, in their own words 
• How traditional Chinese medicine has used Crataegus for centuries, and what the Shen has to do with it 
• The herbs we love to combine with hawthorn, and why you want the flowers, leaves, and berries together 
• How freeze-drying preserves hawthorn's delicate flowers and flavonoid-rich berries 
• The HBP powder blend and how to use it as a warming herbal broth 
• Harvesting tips, home preparation ideas, and why hawthorn jam might be your new favorite thing 

For full show notes and transcript: https://eclecticherb.com/blogs/news/hawthorn-heart-herb 

Try Eclectic Herb's freeze-dried hawthorn and HBP powder at eclecticherb.com. Follow @eclecticherb on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

I always think of Hawthorne as nourishing to the heart. So when you mention the broken heart syndrome or when somebody loses something, we often get cardiac issues from that. We get pain on the heart.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

It is one of those herbs that you do want to take on a regular basis to really give all the support we can to such an important muscle in every one of our bodies. Hello and welcome to Eclectic Herbal Wisdom, where we share stories from the roots of plant medicine.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

I'm Mel Mutterspot, clinical herbalist and herbal educator at Eclectic Herb. And I'm Chris Olstead, herbalist and owner of Eclectic Herb. We are so glad that you're here.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Whether you're brewing up your first cup of metal tea or crafting your own complex herbal remedies, this podcast is for you.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

In each episode, we'll open the pages of Herbal Law from the archives of the incredible Eclectic Library to the living wisdom of today's best herbalists. Together we'll explore how plants have supported people for centuries and how they continue to do so now.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

You'll find stories, science, and soulful conversations with other brilliant herbalists, all sharing real-world insights that you can bring into your daily lives and your practice.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Because herbal wisdom is timeless and it's meant to be shared. So come grow with us as we rediscover the living legacy of the plants.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

When I think of Hawthorne, I can't help but think about love. And I'm sure for so many herbalists out there, when we think of Hawthorne, we really think about the heart in so many different ways because it is one of our greatest cardiotonic herbs out there. It's been shown to support all kinds of cardiac conditions that can often happen as we age, as our heart muscle ages. And it generally becomes a bit weaker with that. Hawthorne can be an incredible ally for those times in life. We also know that it's really wonderful for bringing blood to the extremities. So if you're somebody who maybe has cold hands, cold fingers, cold feet all of the time, you might want to look into Hawthorne to help warm you up and give you all the circulation that you need.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

I always think of Hawthorne as nourishing to the heart. I'm one of those people I went and got one of those DNA tests like we do. And I have that Okinawan gene for longevity, but I also have all these cardiac markers. What do you do with that? And I thought Hawthorne is one that I need to take every day just to keep my system nourished and to help my genetics along.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

I love that. I love that you did that test. And yeah, with Hawthorne, it is one of those herbs that you do want to take on a regular basis to really give all the support we can to such an important muscle in every one of our bodies. Like it is incredible, right? I think about it a lot as well because it's loaded with antioxidants in the berries, in the leaves, in the flowers. There's loads of flavonoids in there, which we know are excellent for improving the elasticity of our vasculature, which is going to also help you get more oxygen throughout the body, but it's also going to be really helpful for reducing elevated blood pressure, which also helps reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke, which, hello, who doesn't need a little help in that department? And I feel like Hawthorne is one of those herbs that we could continue to talk about for hours and hours and hours, whether we're talking about the ways that it actually strengthens and supports the physical heart and cardiovascular system, and also how it does such a beautiful job at opening the spiritual heart to giving and receiving of love or to support somebody through the grieving process of losing something or someone that has been very, very important in their lives. Hawthorne is amazing in these particular cases. It's also incredibly beautiful, it's abundant, and it is really here just to give us all so much love. And well, of course, in today's episode, we are definitely going to talk about ways that we use Hawthorne in herbalism today. But I think it's really fascinating and fun to learn more about the historical uses of Hawthorne, which, if you didn't know, is also called Mayflower. And it's May when we're recording this episode. So it's perfect. And, anyways, Chris, I know that you are a wealth of information when it comes to herbs and historical uses of them. So I'm hoping that you can share a bit with us about Hawthorne and some of its history.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Hawthorne is one that's actually super interesting. So there's some early mentions of it, but it didn't really come into popularity till about 1900. And I had to dig back into why and I thought that's really interesting. You look back at the mythology, and Hawthorne's a really popular, common plant. It grew everywhere and it's just steeped in mythology. Symbolically, as you mentioned, it means love and marriage, and it is a spiritual heart. So when you mention the broken heart syndrome, or when somebody loses something, we often get cardiac issues from that, we get pain on the heart. And we've all heard of the person, their husband passed away, and then six weeks later they go to join them. Or maybe you lose a pet or lose a business or some kind of grief. I think hawthorn is beautiful for that in a spiritual sense. When you go back on the history of that, it actually symbolizes love and marriage. And it was used to make the maypole. So it was actually related to May. And in England, it was a sacred tree. It was linked to the Fae, and you weren't supposed to ever cut them down, especially if you had just had a lone hawthorn tree that sometimes would just come up. It was a guardian tree and you had to leave it. So even though it was protective and good luck, if you cut that tree down and brought it into the house, then it would bring bad luck.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

I also know, speaking of bringing it into the house and bad luck, this is a really interesting thing to put those two together. But I know that it was used to protect babies from the forces of evil. So the Romans would take sprigs of Hawthorne and they'd tie it onto the cradles of infants to keep them safe from the evil spirits. So let's just hope in this particular case they kept the cradles outside of the house so they didn't get bad luck as they were being protected from those evil spirits. Another thing that I know about the history of Hawthorne and it being protective is that it was said that the crown of thorns upon Christ's head was made from hawthorn branches to protect him. I also know that our Native Americans still today use it as food medicine. They make it into tools. They've been doing this for centuries. Oftentimes they would use the wood, which is really, really dense, really hard wood, and they would make tools and weapons, or they would take the thorns of the hawthorn and use them to catch their fish, which is fascinating. I yeah, right. I know I love learning about the many different ways plants have been used throughout history. And I'm hoping that you can help us tap into a little bit more of some of the more medicinal uses or the health-benefiting uses that have happened throughout history.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

So it nourishes us year-round and gives us medicine year-round. So in the spring, the flowers come out, we can hand gather those with the leaves. And then in the fall, the berries come on. So it's it's very generous in its medicine. If we go back, it was first mentioned, and they actually said it was a kidney support and digestive herb. There was a slight mention of circulation, but not much. And then even if you go back to Culpepper, who was the herbal rebel and what he had to say about Hawthorne. So if you think back in his day, it was very common. And he said, it's such a common tree. I don't even have that much to say about it because you know what tree it is. And then he said it was brought by Mars, and he used to beat the seeds into a pulp and take it in wine as a remedy against kidney stones and dropsy. So dropsy is an archaic word for edema, which is linked to the circulation, but it's not directly, in his words, linked to the heart back then. And then he also said he used to use the distilled flour water, which basically we call now a hydrosol. But he used to say that that was used to stay the lask, also a archaic language, and it means resolves diarrhea, basically. And he'd bruised the seeds and wine for pain. So that was how he used it. I thought what was notable was he didn't really say too much about the heart. And then I thought, well, I'm gonna look at what the eclectics had to say about that. And I went to King's American Dispensatory, which is a big herbal text, and much to my shock, Hawthorne wasn't in it. And I thought, what is going on with that? I have a pretty cool kit here from Eli Lilly back in the day when they were a herb company, and they have over 200 herbs in it with little samples. And again, Hawthorne wasn't in it. And I know the eclectics used to use it because they do have a Hawthorne remedy here. So I thought that was kind of interesting. And then it turns out that back in the day, the biggest cardiac remedies that they had, and we're talking about probably about 1880 to about 1900, number one was Cactus Grandifloris or night blooming cereals, and number two, digitalis. No mention of hawthorn.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Wow, that's that's wild.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

So I think they used to use low dose digitalis, certainly not something that I would recommend. It's also known as fox glove and it's highly toxic. I had to really dig to find history on this and to find out the story behind why it's not mentioned in early eclectic history. And it turns out they didn't know about it. Some of their knowledge came in from England and they didn't really know about the cardiac uses of Hawthorne. So the eclectics didn't know about it either. So there was a doctor in Ireland called Dr. Green who had some secret remedy that he was using, and he had really good results with cardiac patients, and he didn't tell anybody what it was. This was about 1880. He died in 1894, and then his daughter came out and said what a secret remedy was, and it was Hawthorne. And then the eclectics started hearing about it. So the first mention I could find about Hawthorne for the heart was Finley Allingwood in 1919. So he writes in October 1896, published in the New York Medical Journal a letter containing the following statement. To this day, I have successfully treated with Crittagus 118 patients who were suffering with various forms of heart disease, not including fatty degeneration and tachycardia. And of the two latter forms of the disease, I have 14 still under treatment. He further writes Cretagus may be regarded as a specific or the nearest approach to a specific in the following cardiac conditions angina pectoris, volvular deficiency, with or without enlargement, endomyo and pericarditis, tachycardia, and rheumatism of the heart. Also, palpitation, vertico, apoplexy, dropsy, and functional derangements. Wow. So that was pretty interesting. He started mentioning it. It still was pretty light. He just has a whole lot of cases written in here about the early uses and he's reporting what other doctors had to say. We have to go further, about three years further, and this is Harvey Wicksfelter, another eclectic physician. And so he writes, the well-known wild shrub of thickets and commonly cultivated hedge and ornamental plant, the English hawthorn seems to have largely escaped the exact investigators of medicinal plants until a quite recent date. In fact, Cretagus is one of the most recently introduced medicinal agents of plant origin. This was 1922. Furthermore, it is distinctive in occupying almost wholly a position in cardiac therapy, though recognized to some extent as a general tonic. So he said that this is something that's just been coming onto the map and is one of the most powerful cardiac tonics.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

You know what I love about hearing these things, Chris, is oftentimes when we're thinking about plants, we're thinking about how they have been used for centuries or even millennia in various formats, oftentimes as the people's medicine. But when we hear about things like the eclectic physicians and how they brought together both tradition and science, yet an herb or a plant that I know so well today as an herbalist for cardiovascular function was not noted just barely over a hundred years ago. And it's just a beautiful thing on like how tradition is so important, yet science is also unbelievably important. I think this is so much fun to learn from.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

And it makes me wonder what else have we not discovered yet? This is such a common herb. They say it's super safe and amazing results compared to what they were using at the time, yet also quite recent in our history. So there's still a lot the plants have to teach us.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

So much so, if we're willing to listen. And I think that in our society today, so many people really forget to listen because we want that instant fix. We have been taught to have that instant fix. And that's a differentiator right there between what's going on in a lot of those pills that people have versus how we tend to use herbs and how they are something that you bring into your daily lifestyle. You use them on a regular basis where you're developing that relationship, and the plant is learning how to do its best work within your body, which is incredible, I think. Beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

It's pretty amazing. I think in some other countries they did use Crategus or Hawthorne, and one of those would be the Chinese. It's recognized in TCM or traditional Chinese medicine as a cardiac tonic. And it's a different form of hawthorn, but they have it in lots of foods and it is something in TCM. So some other cultures and other histories clearly used hawthorne, but in English traditions and in the Western tradition, we didn't know about it.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Yeah, I love that you bring that up, that they were using Cretegas in China. I know that in traditional Chinese medicine, they often refer to the Shen as the spirit rising in the heart. And when that spirit is out of balance, it can show up as things like anxiety, maybe sleeplessness, maybe sleeplessness due to really, really disturbing dreams. And oftentimes, along with that anxiety or those troubles, we might see heart palpitations. And oftentimes what's recommended in that particular situation is Hawthorne. It is very, very specific to help ease stress-related heart conditions. And we also know, and you mentioned, I believe, in some of the eclectic uses, that they were using it somewhat as a nerving. It's a gentle nerving, which is going to be great because we know that oftentimes poor heart health is directly related to excessive stress levels. So I think that it's beautiful hearing how it's been traditionally used here in the United States, also in China and other places around the world, and how how that nervous system and stress response is directly correlated to the heart. And here's this plant that can help address both of those systems simultaneously, almost as if it's this whole beautiful ecosystem within our bodies and with the plants.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

I think stress affects our heart a lot. I'm sure lots of listeners out there and lots of people have experienced that heart palpitation, anxiety, almost gasping for air. I think also if it's linked, as we mentioned earlier, to a loss, the stress of that affects your heart. So it's pretty specific to that condition. And if you just need something gentle, if the stress is affecting heart and breathing, I think hawthorn's one of those nourishing herbs that brings us what we need without being super harsh. Definitely not going to make you drowsy, but it's going to help just bring calmness to that. That can't breathe. Super stressed feeling.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah, I think that's a epidemic almost these days, that excessive stress. So Hawthorne for everybody. I wish it were that easy, right? So you did mention how it grows abundantly in a lot of different areas and places, and you can get different species. And I'm I'm wondering if if you can give our listeners some tips on how they might actually be able to bring hawthorn into their lives a little bit more, growing it.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

So we're here in the Pacific Northwest where hawthorn grows abundantly. If you walk in the native forests, you can see hawthorn everywhere, little trees popping up. And the one that you mainly see is unfortunately not the native one, but it is a medicinal one from England. And I think they're a little bit interchangeable. The native hawthorn here in the Pacific Northwest is the Crategus deglesiae, and it has a darker berry, the um almost bluish. And then the one from England, the Crtagus monogena, is the one with the bright red berry. And what happens is the birds love the berries and they'll pick them and they'll fly around and they'll put the droppings everywhere and it just grows. So I think if it's one you're going to have in your garden, you need to be a little bit careful. And if you're here in Oregon, I would definitely recommend the native. They will spread if it's non-native and the little trees will come up and they're quite fast growing, but it does provide a lot of medicine. The one in China is the Crategus Bonifida, and the Chinese form is different, it's got a much bigger fruit. I've seen this over in China. I remember I was at a food stand somewhere and they had this fruit, they had strawberries and all these different things, and there was something I didn't recognise. It was like about the size of a crab apple, and it was um in tangaloo form or sugared. And I was with my cad and I wanted to try that and never knew what it was. I had to go look it up, and it turns out it was a hawthorn fruit. And the Chinese eat it everywhere. I've seen it here in the Asian markets, they have little um wafers of hawthorn, different candies, different kinds of dried fruit. And it it's almost a bit date-like in the different preparation methods. But using the Chinese one as nourishment is really easy. You can just take it as a snack and get the dried hawthorns, and they say um it's a good nourishing herb for the heart. So what the Chinese used to use it for was for digestion, oily food, and meat overload, as well as a heart tonic and for blood stagnation. So if you eat lots of gross, fatty, meaty food, which is also bad for the cardiovascular system, then take the hawthorn to help with that.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

I love that. And I love how you brought up that they make it into like little candies and treats, because it just makes me think about like Valentine's gifts full of love from Hawthorne. I don't know. That just makes my heart happy yet again. And I wanted to touch upon a little bit of like the harvesting. So we use the flowers, we use the leaves, we use the berries. And oftentimes, what happens with those flowers? They're lovely and delicate little flowers, but they will quickly degrade and lose their vitality and their potency. You'll see this if you've ever gone into an herb shop and you look at their jar of hawthorn leaf and flower, and you can't even recognize those beautiful white little flowers, you know, like you're you're losing out on a lot of the vitality and potency of this incredibly beneficial plant. And then I think about like those berries, how they get all just kind of wrinkled up when they are air dried. And this is where it's so important to preserve these plants, the flowers, the leaves, and the berries in a way that's going to ensure that they are the most beneficial for you. So that's what we do here at Eclectic Herb. We freeze dry them. And that means that we are preserving more of the beneficial compounds, the vitamins, the minerals, the flavonoids, all of the things that are really going to give your heart and cardiovascular system all the love that it needs. I also love to tincture Hawthorn. Like I'll gather the leaves and flowers and I'll tincture those and I'll save that tincture for when berries come around. And then I'll add the berries to that whole formulation, which is really, really lovely. But not everybody wants a tincture or has the time to go out and gather those things. But that's that's why we're here for you.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

That's a really cool way to make the tincture. Yeah. So do you put the flowers and the leaves in and then strain it and then add the berries later in the season so you get the complete plant?

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Absolutely. Yeah. It's a great way to go. Bring it in.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

No, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Um, what I do is the flowers are very fleeting. And if you try to air dry them, which I've tried, they go brown. They don't look very good. The berries, if you dry them, they end up kind of like raisins and they're gummy. So also don't like those very much. But there's lots of home freeze dryers these days. If you put the flowers in the freeze dryer, it they actually stay like looking like a flower. They keep the colour, they're still white, they're crisp. Um, a little tip when you're trying to freeze-dry flowers, some of them, the petals puff up, so some you might just want to spray them with a bit of water, and it actually keeps them uh looking good. And then um for the berry, I think we've all by now seen the strawberries or the little uh freeze-dried bilberries in the store, and they still look like the fruit. So if you put the berries into the freeze-dryer, they come out just crisp and hold their shape, they hold all the medicinal components in them. And uh one trick to get them is uh the hawthorn's thorny. If you sit there and try to handpick the berries, it's gonna be pretty hard. You're gonna need cuts on your fingers and stuff like that. So I'll just cut the the limbs off and then I'll just put the whole thing in my freezer. Then when it's frozen, I can shake the berries off and harvest them that way.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Yeah, that is great advice there. I I want a home freeze dryer, but I'm really grateful that I I have eclectic herb at least to freeze-dry things for me. So that is extremely advantageous. I think it would be fun to make hawthorn jam or maybe a hawthorn berry, like a butter, almost like an apple butter. Have you ever used something like that?

SPEAKER_02 25:37

I tried to make a hawthorn liqueur. And the thing about hawthorn, it's really high in pectin. So when you try to make things with it, it was a little bit almost slimy in consistency. It tasted delicious, but it does gel up pretty quickly. So when you make things, you can make a hawthorn syrup and just have to be a little bit aware of the texture. But I think hawthorn syrups or the butter's a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Yeah, that would be fun. Hawthorn rose hip jam. Oh, yeah. You know what else I have been loving a lot lately is you make that HBP powder or the Hawthorne Beets Parsley, and you can take that powder and just put hot water in it, and it's like a really super delicious broth because we also use garlic in there, which is one of our better herbs for the cardiovascular system. And it is, it's so yummy, especially for somebody that might not want a meat-based broth, might be vegan or something like that. It's a really easy, quick way to go. And if you're not into that, we now have those HBP capsules. So it's quick and easy to get all of those beneficial plant friends into your body. Where there is a will, there is a way.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

Yeah, I like that product too. I like something I dish like roast potatoes or roast veggies, you can just sprinkle it on the top. Or if you throw it in a miso soup, it just gives the extra body to the garlic and the parsley and the herbs and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Ooh, and I bet it makes the miso soup so beautifully colored as well. That's a really good idea on the roasted veggies. I love that. Super fabulous. Well, if any of you are now like, Hawthorne is amazing, and an herb that I should certainly bring into my life, but you don't want to battle the thorns, then you should definitely check us out at eclectikerb.com. We do have Hawthorne powders for you. We have the HBP powder and we have capsules as well. And I know that once you start bringing Hawthorne into your life on a regular basis, it will make you happy, healthy, heart and soul.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

Thanks for listening, everyone. I hope that you feel inspired to try Hawthorne. It really is one of those herbs that you should consider for everyday use. It just builds nourishment around the heart and it's just a great one for that.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Absolutely. And if this episode was helpful or inspiring, we'd be so grateful if you share it with the friends that you have that you want to also have that happy, healthy heart and soul. So have a good one. Bye. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Eclectic Herbal Wisdom. We are so grateful you spent your time with us. And if you enjoyed this episode, we'd love it if you share it with a friend who might appreciate it as well.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

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SPEAKER_02 28:34

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SPEAKER_00 28:39

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SPEAKER_02 28:55

Everything we share on this podcast is for educational purposes only. We are here to inspire and inform that this isn't medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare practitioner before studying any new herbal protocol, especially if you're pregnant, nursing, or taking medications.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Thanks again for tuning into the show. Until next time, may the plants guide you. Take care.