Dried Jewelweed

A while back I wrote a post on jewelweed, a wild remedy for poison ivy.
Wild Medicine for Poison Ivy

This year I decided to dry some and see if it still worked after being dried. I just hung it up in the rafters, it dried in about a week.

Well, I got my chance to try it out!

Earlier in the week I was digging plants and got into poison ivy, ending up with a 3 inch spot on my left hand. Oooooh, it was itchy!

I took about a heaping tablespoon of the dried jewelweed, mixed it with enough water to make a poultice, and put it on the spot of poison. What a relief! The itching stopped and the spot is just about gone!

So, you can dry jewelweed! This will be great for this winter as my husband gets into it occasionally when he cuts trees. I just wish I had dried more.


Jewelweed grows all over here in East Tennessee and the Smoky Mountains. It's found in shady, woodland areas, usually growing alongside poison ivy. We have it all along the creek and it seems to do better in moist, mostly shady areas.

Don't have wild jewelweed?

You can order jewelweed seeds from Horizon Herbs or Prairie Moon Nursery. If you're going to order some, I would do it now and plant them immediately. In the wild, the seeds are scattered when the seedpods explode and they don't come up until the following spring. A lot of wildflowers need the chilling requirement of winter before their seeds will germinate.
Maybe next year I'll have some seeds to share. :)