Clove

Syzygium aromaticum

Also: Cloves, Eugenia caryophyllata

WarmingDryingTonifying

Numbs a sore tooth and warms a crampy, gassy gut.

The dried flower buds of a tall tropical evergreen, picked pink and sun-dried into small brown nails. Clove is hot, numbing, and strongly antimicrobial; it relaxes a cramping gut and eases pain wherever it touches, and its main compound, eugenol, is still used in dental dressings.

Energetics: Hot, drying, toning
Taste: Pungent, aromatic, numbing, bitter
Family: Myrtaceae (myrtle family)
Parts used: Dried flower buds

Medicinal uses 4

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Traditional useLab and mechanism studiesClinical studies

ToothacheTLC
Diluted clove oil on a sore tooth numbs the pain; in a trial, clove gel numbed the gums before a needle about as well as benzocaine.
Mouth sores & gumsTLC
In mouthwashes, numbs and disinfects sore gums and mouth sores.
Indigestion & bloatingTLC
Relaxes a cramping gut and moves gas and bloating; one or two cloves in a cup of tea is enough.
Muscle tension & spasmTLC
Added to liniments and massage oils, eases cramping muscles and helps the other herbs sink in.

Preparations

Diluted oil for toothache, whole cloves in tea, tincture in formulas, and mouthwashes and liniments.

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Cautions

Always dilute clove essential oil; undiluted it burns skin and gums.
Keep clove oil away from children. Swallowed, it has caused liver failure and seizures in young children, and it is not for teething babies.
Herbalists keep doses small with high blood pressure, since moderate to large amounts can raise it.
Eugenol slows clotting; take care with blood thinners, and stop medicinal doses two weeks before surgery.

Medication interactions

Practitioner Practitioners are able to see the 3 types of medicine flagged for clove, each with the mechanism and what to do. The plain-language cautions above stay open to everyone.

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Pregnancy & breastfeeding

PregnancyCulinary amounts

Cloves in cooking are considered compatible with pregnancy. The essential oil, which is mostly eugenol, is avoided, and large doses near the due date are left out because eugenol slows clotting.

BreastfeedingCulinary amounts

Cooking amounts are considered compatible; leave out the essential oil while nursing.

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Folklore

Clove takes its name from the Latin clavus, nail, for its shape. Cloves turned up in a house that burned around 1700 BCE at Terqa, in Syria, thousands of miles from the five small islands of the Moluccas where the tree grew. Han dynasty officials held a clove in the mouth to sweeten their breath before speaking to the emperor. The Dutch later burned clove trees outside the islands they controlled to keep the price high, until the French official Pierre Poivre smuggled seedlings to Mauritius in 1770.

How to grow

A tropical evergreen tree that needs steady heat, humidity, and rain and will not survive frost; outside the tropics it grows only in a warm greenhouse. Trees take several years to flower. The buds are picked by hand in clusters while still pink, before they open, and dried in the sun until they turn brown.

In the wild

Native to the North Moluccas of Indonesia and now grown across the wet tropics, with Indonesia, Madagascar, Zanzibar, and Sri Lanka among the main producers. Most of Indonesia's crop is smoked in kretek, the country's clove cigarettes.

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