Photo: Abu Shawka, CC0 (via Wikimedia Commons)
Kooigoedbossie
Helichrysum odoratissimum
Also known as Imphepho, Everlasting, Hottentot's Tea, Cape Snowflower
Key benefits
✦Traditional uses
✦Long before it had a Latin name, kooigoedbossie was a familiar presence in homes across Southern Africa, where its sweet, honeyed scent marked it as something special among the veld's silvery shrubs. Healers and households alike turned to it for coughs, colds, and headaches, and dried bundles of it were burned as fragrant smoke in ceremonies meant to cleanse a space and settle an anxious mind. Its Afrikaans name, meaning bedding herb, tells its own quiet story, of leaves once tucked into mattresses and pillows to encourage calm, restorative sleep. It remains one of the most treasured aromatic plants of the Cape and the grasslands beyond it.
How to grow & use it
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- ✦Remedies & preparations
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- ✦Rooibos
- ✦Wild mint (Mentha longifolia)
- ✦Buchu
- ✦Chamomile (for a calming evening tea)
- ✦Other silvery Helichrysum species, such as curry plant (Helichrysum italicum)
“When the veld itself seems to be telling you to slow your breath, ease your chest, and let the evening settle.”
The Afrikaans name kooigoed literally means bedding stuff, because the soft, sweetly scented dried leaves and stems were once used to stuff mattresses and pillows, and the plant was thought to bring on peaceful sleep and gentle dreams.
No serious toxicity is reported from traditional use of kooigoedbossie as a mild tea, but as a daisy-family plant it may cause a reaction in those allergic to ragweed or marigold.