Plantain Ribwort (Plantago lanceolata)

Available either as a dried herb or herbal tincture.

Please note this is a nutritional, functional horse food supplement and not veterinary medicine. See Dr Kellon's Horse Sense - 'Nutrition is not 'Alternative' Therapy.

Tincture

Our human-grade, certified organic tinctures give you a ready-to-absorb potent source of phytonutrients at the highest-strength available, for immediate absorption straight into the bloodstream and to the body’s cells.

100% certified organic pure tincture: Plantago lanceolata (Plantain Ribwort) Leaf, Infused 1:3 35% , Organically grown

Feed Guide

• Horse - 30-40ml / Pony - 15-20ml, daily in feed.
• Always shake the bottle to disperse any sediment.
• 3-year shelf-life.

Dried Herb

Produced to ecological standards and free from agro-chemicals.

Certified organic dried herb: Plantago lanceolata (Plantain Ribwort) Leaf , Organically cultivated/Wild Harvested, Origin Poland

Feed Guide

• 5g/100kg bodyweight per day, thus for an average 500kg horse add 25g daily to feed.
• 1-year shelf-life.

Functional Nutritional Value

Constituents: Allantoin, mucilage (polysaccharides), iridoid glycosides (including aucubin and catalpol), flavonoids (apigenin, luteolin), minerals (including significant zinc and potassium), and tannin.

NB. Our range of botanicals are all grown, harvested and dried without the use of agri-chemicals, non-irradiated and GMO free - see our Quality page for Quality Management & Certification Documents. Laboratory tested for identification and compliance to the British and European Pharmacopoeia standards, and human grade.

Please be aware that if you're purchasing our dried botanicals for human use, our dried range is cut to appropriate sizes for feeding to horses.

More ...

Romeo: Your plantain leaf is excellent for that.
Benvoleo: For what, I pray thee?
Romeo: For your broken shin.
– William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene II

Plantain must be one of the most ignored amazing herbs. It’s a seemingly lowly little weed, that grows everywhere to get trodden on and completely disregarded, and yet is has a surprisingly illustrious history, from Shakespeare (in both Romeo and Juliet and Love’s Labour’s Lost ) to a place among the nine holy herbs of the 5 ^th century Anglo-Saxons, who called it “the mother of worts (plants)”. In the 1 ^st century AD, Greek Physician Dioscorides included plantain for its wound healing and anti-infective properties in his Materia Medica , and Nicolas Culpeper (1652) raved about it.

For us horse owners I’d like to think no-one’s interested in plantain because as there’s so much of it on every scrubby track and every field, we simply grab handfuls of it when we need it, but secretly I don’t think we do. And yet, this humble weed soothes inflammation and infection, heals skin, lungs, urinary and digestive issues, and is an awesome antitussive. There’s a saying that says something along the lines of, ‘it grows everywhere it’s needed’, which probably is very true.

So let’s get to know plantain a little bit. For starters it’s related to psyllium ( Plantago ovata ), the very well known soluble fibre that every horse owner knows to help their horse get through a bout of loose droppings; most humans who’ve also used bowel-regulating products will no doubt have ingested psyllium in them. Plantain’s seeds can also be used in a similar way as psyllium, as in a bulk-forming, mucilaginous laxative, taken ground or whole in water, which makes plantain a great prebiotic food as well. And a little known bit of plantain trivia for you - the seeds can also be used as a thickener or binding agent in recipes, and could be substituted for eggs in baked goods – who knew?!

But ultimately, plantain is all about its demulcent and anti-inflammatory properties which soothe digestive and respiratory issues. The Cherokees used it as indian band aid for bites, stings, cuts, and scrapes, and drawing out slivers, splinters, or stingers. Which leads us nicely to nettle stings – grab some plantain, crush it between thumb and fingers to release the juice, then apply to said sting – instant relief, and the same is said for symptoms of poison ivy and sunburn.

Which means it makes a great poultice for our horses as well, although you’ll need to macerate those leaves first. Or get some dried plantain herb and soak it to a mush. For us we can shove a leaf in a sock for hotspots or blisters.

The list of plantain’s usefulness goes on and on, well corroborated in laboratory studies which have shown than wounds treated with plantain showed faster healing times and greater wound tensile strength due to collagen growth. It’s anti-inflammatory and astringent properties can soothe and tone chronic or acute skin conditions such as eczema, rosacea, shingles, varicose veins, and even haemorrhoids, with in-vitro studies also showing that it has antiviral, immunomodulatory, and anticarcinoma properties. And like comfrey, the root is sometimes used for its bone-knitting properties.

Then there’s its antimicrobial properties useful for abscesses, ulcers, dental issues, mastitis, and historically even blood poisoning - “[Plantain’s] medicine is like a lance that penetrates and opens the wound to draw out the poison”. Some herbalists even say that plantain can be used as an emergency water purifier owing to its inhibition of E. coli, Streptococcus pneumonia , and giardia, which I wish I’d known back in the late 1990s when I was travelling around Nepal and caught said guardia, which in case anyone’s interested wasn’t fun at all! If only there’d been some plantain about …

I could go on and on about plantain but I think you get the picture, so I’ll end with saying we blend it into our PollenTonic as it’s a very useful anti-allergenic, especially when it comes to hay fever-like symptoms due to the spring tree pollens, due to its antihistamine effects, and it goes without saying that it’s a major antitussive player in our KoffTonic.

Safety

• Super safe ;-)