Meadowsweet

Filipendula ulmaria

Also: Queen of the meadow, Meadwort, Spiraea ulmaria, Bridewort

CoolingDryingTonifying

The stomach's gentle aspirin.

Frothy cream-colored plumes over wet meadows in early summer, smelling of almonds and honey, with leaves that smell of wintergreen when crushed. Meadowsweet soothes and tightens an irritated, burning stomach and eases aching joints with its natural salicylates.

Energetics: Cooling, drying, toning
Taste: Astringent, sweet
Family: Rosaceae (rose family)
Parts used: Flowering tops

Medicinal uses 8

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Traditional useLab and mechanism studiesClinical studies

Heartburn & refluxTLC
Cools the burn of reflux by calming an inflamed stomach lining. Herbalists call it an antacid, though it soothes the irritation rather than neutralizing acid.
Indigestion & bloatingTLC
Firms a lax, sore, overworked stomach and eases the pain that comes with it.
Gut irritation & ulcersTLC
Helps repair damage left by NSAID painkillers, often paired with plantain and calendula.
Joint pain & arthritisTLC
Eases sore, swollen joints, and its long use for gout comes from helping the body flush uric acid.
Aches & painTLC
A mild, stomach-friendly pain reliever for aches and feverish soreness.
Menstrual crampsTLC
Eases period cramps when the uterus feels heavy and boggy, often paired with raspberry leaf or lady's mantle.
Loose bowelsTLC
Firms loose bowels, a gentle remedy long given to children in European folk practice.
Mouth sores & gumsTLC
Held in the mouth as a strong tea, soothes canker sores and bitten cheeks.

Preparations

Covered tea of the flowering tops, tincture, stomach formulas, and mouth rinses.

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Cautions

Contains salicylates: leave it out if you are allergic to aspirin or sensitive to salicylates, and talk with your prescriber if you take blood thinners.
Leave it out for children and teens with flu or chickenpox, the same rule as for aspirin.
Keep teas and tinctures away from cats and dogs, since salicylates poison them.

Medication interactions

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Pregnancy & breastfeeding

PregnancyAvoid

Its salicylates act like a gentle aspirin. Aspirin-type medicines late in pregnancy can narrow a vessel in the baby's heart and add to bleeding at birth, so meadowsweet stays out of pregnancy.

BreastfeedingAvoid

Salicylates pass into milk, and infants are kept away from aspirin-type compounds. Choose another herb while nursing.

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Folklore

Meadowsweet once flavored mead, and its old name meadwort comes from that brewing. John Gerard wrote that Queen Elizabeth I preferred it above all other herbs for strewing her chambers. In the 1830s chemists drew salicylic acid from its flower buds, and when Bayer named a new drug in 1899 it chose aspirin, built from spir for Spiraea, the plant's old genus. It is said to be one of the three herbs the Druids held most sacred.

How to grow

A perennial for damp ground. Plant in full sun to part shade in moist, rich soil, at a pond edge or in a rain garden. Cut the flowering tops when about half the buds have opened and dry them quickly in shade, since they brown easily.

In the wild

Wet meadows, ditches, fens, and stream banks across Europe and western Asia, naturalized in parts of northeastern North America.

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