Yarrow Identification
Your Practical Guide To Self Reliant Living
Yarrow is a common wild herb that’s useful in both the kitchen and medicine cabinet. This list of yarrow uses covers everything from biscuits and beer to salves, soaps, and tinctures.
Yarrow’s always seemed magical to me, and I remember lounging in my room as a teenager, reading through 16th-century herbals and dreaming of the day I’d spot it in real life. (Yes really, that’s actually how I spent my free time as a teenager. I know, I’m such a nerd.)
The problem is, while yarrow grows ALMOST everywhere, I happened to grow up in one of the very few places outside of yarrow’s range…the Mojave Desert. Now on my homestead in Vermont, it grows in every untended nook and cranny. We’ll see our first yarrow blooms in early summer, and it’ll keep right on producing through fall, meaning I have a virtually unlimited supply of yarrow (even leaving plenty for the bees).
Though yarrow is incredibly common, so are its look-alikes. Once you’ve actually spotted yarrow, you’ll agree that the look-alikes aren’t really all that close. There are lots of low growing herbs with white flower clusters, but yarrow really stands out in a crowd.
Start with the flowers. They’re white, but not really. If you were looking at paint samples, they’d have the name “Victorian white” or some other fancy title, because in reality, they’re a muted off white color.
Yarrow blooming in our yard.
Yarrow leaves are also distinctive, and there’s a reason its species name is “millefolium” or thousands of leaves. The leaves are feathery, as opposed to the more distinct leaves of Queen Anne’s Lace and other white flowering herbs.
Make sure you’re 100% certain on your identification, as there are white-flowering plants within its range that are deadly toxic (namely, Water Hemlock). To my eye, they don’t look anything alike, but as an optimistic teenager desperate to find yarrow in some stray ditch…I may well have made that mistake.
Read this guide to Yarrow Identification for more information.
So why is yarrow so magical? Many reasons!
A wide geographic distribution means yarrow made it into the traditional pharmacopeias in Asia, Europe and the new world. Yarrow is used in everything from food and drink, to salves and tinctures, to ritual divination and ceremony.
This quick list will give you some ideas, but is by no means comprehensive:
Be aware that while it’s generally considered safe, individual reactions are always possible. It’s also contraindicated for pregnant women, as it can induce menstrual flow and possibly increase the risk of miscarriage.
While yarrow is perhaps best known for its uses as a medicinal, both internally and externally, it’s also a tasty culinary herb. It’s not the only one of course, and many culinary herbs (thyme, sage, rosemary, and more) are potent medicinals, taken in the right dosage at the right time.
These yarrow recipes incorporate a small amount of yarrow, just enough to flavor the dish without reaching a “medicinal” dosage.
Believe it or not, hops are actually a relatively recent brewing ingredient. Before hops became common in beer, herbal beers, or gruits, were all the rage. Yarrow was one of the most common brewing ingredients, and it was known to create an extremely intoxicating brew.
While hops are a sedative, that dulls the senses and slows the sex drive, yarrow based brews do just the opposite. There’s a reason yarrow beers (and meads) were popular historically because they lifted you up and sent you home ready to put a few buns in the oven (if you catch my drift).
Our own homemade yarrow beer
If you’re interested in learning to brew with herbs, specifically yarrow, I’d highly recommend the book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, which takes you through literally thousands of years of herbal brewing tradition (with recipes for each herb discussed).
The Wildcrafting Brewer likewise includes recipes for yarrow brews and approaches the subject more from a foraging perspective (rather than a historical one).
While the traditions have but been forgotten, a few brewers keep the traditions alive. Here are a few yarrow beverage recipes to wet your whistle, both alcoholic and non.
Harvesting Flowering Tops
My most common use of yarrow is as a first-aid treatment for bleeding. Yarrow tincture in a spray bottle is a powerful astringent, and I’ve watched it pucker closed wounds in seconds.
I always keep a small spray bottle on hand just in case, and it’s worked wonders on all manner of small (but persistent) topical injuries. It’s also made into styptic powder and DIY quick clot, for similar purposes.
Homemade Yarrow Tincture (Alcohol extract of yarrow)
Over the longer term, something like a yarrow salve is wonderful for treating injuries and promoting healing. It’s also commonly employed as an itch remedy topically.
Making a yarrow salve is no different than making any herbal healing salve, and it comes together quickly with just a few ingredients.
Yarrow has been used for millennia to stop bleeding and treat minor wounds. A healing salve helps preserve the herb, and ensures that it’s on hand when needed.
More yarrow uses for first aid:
Beyond yarrows use as a topical first aid remedy, it’s also commonly used in preventative remedies and internal medicine.
Yarrow Capsules (Image Courtesy of Nitty Gritty Life)
Beyond yarrows medicinal uses, it has practical uses as well. It’s used in natural insect repellants as well as homemade pesticide-free flea and tick powder for pets.
Yarrow’s natural astringent properties make it useful in soap, especially fascial soap for acne.
Making soap at home isn’t as hard as you think, but if you’re intimidated by lye, you can always incorporate yarrow into a homemade melt and pour soap.
Wild Rose and Yarrow Soap from Grow Forage Cook Ferment
So far we’ve covered yarrow’s uses in food, drink, first aid, and cosmetics…but there’s more. Historically yarrow was used to help set milk for cheesemaking (stinging nettles, cleavers, and fig sap are similarly used for this purpose).
There’s also quite a bit of superstition around yarrow and divination, both in eastern and western traditions. In the west, it was incorporated into dream pillows and the scent supposedly promotes deep lucid dreaming. In the east, there’s a specific protocol for divination with yarrow stalks.
Looking for more ways to use your herbal harvest?
(As always, it’s important to be 100% sure in your identification of any wild or cultivated plant. I am not a doctor or herbalist, nor do I claim to be. Please be sure to do your research and consult a qualified professional before starting any new treatment, herbal or otherwise.)
Do you know if the ‘ornamental’ varieties of yarrow can also be used in a similar fashion? Garden centres sell very nice red and yellow varieties with lush silvery foliage but they are in the yarrow family. I’m wondering if they have similar properties to the white yarrow that grows wild up here (another country that shares a border with Vermont… :-D)
That’s a good question, and I don’t know the answer for sure. Those varieties are bred/selected for color, not medicinal use, but that doesn’t mean the medicinal use was necessarily bred out of them. I imagine it wasn’t even considered. It seems likely they’d still have the same properties, but I honestly couldn’t say one way or the other. Occasionally here we get wild pink/red yarrow in our patch, so there is natural variation, I imagine they just planted enough seeds and then cultivated the off types into ornamental varieties.
Can yarrow be purchased? I am pretty sure I’ve never seen it growing near me.
Very interesting information! Thanks for sharing!
Yes of course! It’s widely available dried from all manner of herbal suppliers. Try starwest botanicals, frontier herbs or mountain rose herbs. All should have it.
Yarrow infusions definitely will fight some infections, but tastes like pee smells even when I load the infusion with cayenne and peppermint. I simply cannot imagine cooking with it, although it might be flavorful in salads.
Hello Vermont Girl, You must have been reading my mind when you put out this post on yarrow. I made a poultice of yarrow to put on my grandson poison Ivy in the last few days and yarrow works great. We really enjoy all your posts Love to read. Thank you keep up the great work. Take care and be well.
Wonderful, glad the timing worked out (and good to know on the poultice).
I have yarrow in my garden but I didn’t know that it can be used in so many ways! I knew only its medical properties but after reading this post I know that I can also use it for my skin and in the kitchen! Good to know! But yes, it’s a good point about Water Hemlock..Be really careful! I use yarrow grown from seeds.
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I’m an off-grid homesteader in rural Vermont and the author of Practical Self Reliance, a blog that helps people find practical ways to become more self-reliant. Read More…
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