Chickweed

Stellaria media

Also: Starweed, Satin flower, Winterweed

CoolingMoisteningRelaxing

Cools itching skin and feeds the body through winter.

A sprawling, tender annual with paired oval leaves, tiny white star flowers, and a single line of fine hairs running up each stem. Chickweed cools and soothes hot, itchy skin, softens swollen glands, and makes a mineral-rich green in the cold months when little else grows.

Energetics: Cooling, moistening, relaxing
Taste: Mild, green, faintly salty
Family: Caryophyllaceae (pink family)
Parts used: Aerial parts, fresh or dried

Medicinal uses 4

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Traditional useLab and mechanism studiesClinical studies

Rashes & eczemaTLC
As a poultice, salve, or bath, cools hot, itchy, irritated skin.
Depletion & mineral needsTLC
A tender salad green and nourishing tea rich in minerals.
Swollen glandsTLC
Softens swollen glands, eaten fresh and laid over them as a poultice.
Cuts, scrapes & bleedingTLC
A fresh poultice draws and soothes splinters, boils, and inflamed scrapes.

Preparations

Fresh poultices, salve, tea, and the fresh greens as food.

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Cautions

Very gentle. Large amounts of the fresh plant can loosen the bowels.
Before you forage, learn to tell it from scarlet pimpernel, a mildly toxic look-alike: chickweed has white flowers and a single line of hairs along the stem.

Pregnancy & breastfeeding

PregnancyGenerally regarded as safe

A food plant with no action on the uterus. As a cream or bath it soothes skin stretched tight by pregnancy. Itching on the palms and soles in late pregnancy needs a call to your midwife, since it can signal a liver condition.

BreastfeedingGenerally compatible

Safe as food and on the skin.

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Folklore

Stellaria means little star, for the flowers, whose five petals are split so deeply they look like ten. Country people fed it to hens and caged songbirds, which gave the plant its common name. Gardeners took a thick carpet of chickweed as a sign of rich ground, and old weather lore held that its flowers stay shut when rain is coming.

How to grow

A cool-season annual that grows fall through spring and fades in summer heat. It thrives in rich, moist soil in part shade and self-sows readily. Harvest with scissors, taking the top few inches so it keeps growing.

In the wild

Garden beds, lawns, field edges, and disturbed, rich soil worldwide, most lush in cool, damp weather.

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