Spikenard Plants

Appearance

• The American spikenard is a tall plant with red and purple berries and greenish-white flowers. The plant can reach heights of up to 10 feet and can grow 5 feet in width. The flowers bloom each summer, generally in the months of July and August. The flowers grow in clusters on the bushy stems. The leaves of the spikenard are large, dark green to red and hang from wide limbs.

Distribution

• The spikenard grows from central Canada in the north to parts of Virginia and Georgia in the southern United States. The plant also grows throughout the west, although Texas does not have many spikenard plants with the exception of the ones that grow in thickets in the higher altitudes of the Trans-Pecos region, or the farthest western portion of the state. In fact, the only state in the United States that some form of the spikenard does not grow is in Nevada, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture website.

Medicinal Uses

• The medicinal uses of the spikenard plant are extensive. Native Americans first used the spikenard for various conditions that included making a tea from the plant to treat back pain and gas. The spikenard was also used in a concoction to relieve coughing, asthma and angina among the Shawnee tribes.

  Women in various tribes drank spikenard tea to make childbirth quicker and less painful. The Micmac Indians made a salve from the spikenard to treat topical wounds, and the Ojibwas used it to treat broken bones, according to the Herbs 2000 website.

  Settlers used the juice from the berries to cure earaches and it was believed it could cure the deaf. Blood purification was thought to be a side effect of spikenard, making it an acceptable medicine in those days for syphilis, rheumatism and gout.