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Alpine Avens
Geum montanum
Also known as Mountain Avens, Alpine Geum, Clove Root
Key benefits
✦Traditional uses
✦High above the treeline, where few plants bother to grow at all, Alpine shepherds and herbalists learned to prize the humble Geum montanum for the surprise hidden in its root. Sliced open, the fresh root releases a warm, clove-like fragrance, and for centuries mountain households used it as a stand-in for true cloves, which had to be carried up from distant lowland markets at great expense. Steeped into a simple root tea, it was taken after heavy meals as a digestive tonic, and the same infusion was swished as a folk gargle for sore gums and scratchy throats. Because it thrives where almost nothing else will, alpine avens also became something of a quiet symbol of endurance and simple comfort in the villages that grew up in its shadow.
How to grow & use it
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- ✦Wild thyme
- ✦Peppermint
- ✦Dandelion root
- ✦Whole cloves
- ✦Wood avens (Geum urbanum) root
“For a warming, clove-scented tonic gathered above where the trees give out.”
The clove-like scent of alpine avens root comes from eugenol, the very same aromatic compound that gives true cloves their bite, which is why mountain cooks once called it their poor man's clove.
No significant toxicity is known, and alpine avens has a modest history of culinary and folk use in its native range. As with other rose-family plants, sensitive individuals may react to it.