Corylopsis Himalayana

Medicines That Flower
It doesn’t matter how far and wide you travel, you will find local knowledge of the plants, herbs, animals, and spring waters that heal whatever ails people in that region.
Even more fascinating--and something that herbalists have long known--you will often find the antidote (healing balm) for a poisonous or irritating agent right next to the offender.  Nature supplies its own first aid kit along with its insult.  We do live on the plane of duality, after all...
Here am I outside of Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, looking at the region’s unique herbs that grow from 1500 to 5500 meters. The Swiss with their successful pharmaceutical industry has long had an eye for these unique plants and has helped Bhutan safeguard and catalogue indigenous herbs and other botanicals as part of a sustainable ecological mission, along with a strong interest in developing a robust trade in healing pharmaceuticals.

So what are the common, age-old illnesses that plague the Bhutanese?  Respiratory conditions: colds, flu, sinusitus.  And that’s where you’ll find the most effective plants that clear “wind” from your system, in the Traditional Tibetan Medicine sense of that ailment. Cold, damp, sneezy, coughing, chilled to the bone kind of climates generate the best ephedra plants I’ve ever seen.  Ephedra dries up the bronchials and allows you to inhale once again!