The Life is a member of the mint family and derives its name from the powerful and lingering aroma of curry when the leaves or stems are crushed. It is indigenous to North America, especially around North Carolina and South Carolina, and has long been used for countless healing and therapeutic purposes.
Known variously by the Latin name Helicrysium stoechas and by the local name cudweed, the everlasting flowers of life appear on downy stems in numerous multitudes of white blooms. They carry a supportive and comforting scent and are known to induce sleep.
Flowers of Life are commonly recommended in herbal meditation blends to encourage spirituality and personal growth. Some believe that the scent opens the right side of the brain, enhancing creativity and dream activity. The flowers are also particularly valued for their decorative beauty in dried flower arrangements and wreaths that last for years. The dried herbs of the plant make an infusion of tea or a relaxing bath.
Life Flower grass is a perennial root that creeps and spreads easily almost like a troublesome weed. But its medicinal and therapeutic applications are extensive. The leaves and flowers have been chewed by some people as a remedy for ulcerations of the mouth and throat and are regularly used as a natural astringent. Life Everlasting weed was even a substitute for tobacco smoking with New England fishermen. Smoking the weed in a different way, inhaling the smoke from the burnt weed, was at one time considered good for lung coughs and headaches. The fresh juice of the Flower of Eternal Life is said to be an aphrodisiac. The flowers are credited with a small litany of properties: expectorant, diaphoretic, anodyne, astringent, pectoral, and expectorant, to name a few. The Flowers of Eternal Life are applied for lung problems. diarrhea, dysentery, coughs, colds, chest pains. Powders and hot infusions of the herb Vida Eterna have been used in leucorrhea, intestinal diseases and hemorrhages. The herb is used in poultices for sprains, painful swellings, bruises, boils, insect bites, even tumors and bruises.
The Life Everlast-Flower is steeped in American Indian history. Decoctions were used by different tribes to treat a wide variety of skin and neurological disorders. They made tea infusions with the flowers for asthma, bronchitis and colds. Today, Life Everlasting Flower has been increasingly used in blends for skin and severe bruises for the way it appears to reabsorb blood into tissues and eliminate pain and discoloration from nerve damage.
The therapeutic and medicinal versatility of the prolific flower of eternal life is as prodigious as its name. Its gentle yet powerful healing has long-lasting effects, from teas and baths to ancient crowns.
