When it comes to female reproductive health, there’s only one plant that usually come to mind. That plant is the fairy wand, also known as false unicorn root. Right from menstrual cramp to infertility issues, fairy wand has extensively been used in traditional tincture for treating varied ailments, even beyond reproductive complex problems.
Fairy wand plant
Fairy wand (Chamaelirium luteum) is a dioecious plant with the male plants dominating in number in a given ecological population. The female plants are fewer due to their susceptibility to death, and have low tendency to flower, unlike the male counter part. This explains the reason for the fewer number of female plants of fairy wand.
Fairy wand is also known as false unicorn, Blazing star, Devil’s bit, and Helonias. It is a herbaceous plant that’s native to North America. However, it can also be found in abundance in East Canada.
What’s the main use of fairy wand?
The most important part of false unicorn plant is the rhizome or roots. The roots are used as tincture, ground and made into herbal tea, and as powdered additive.
Health benefits of fairy wand (false unicorn)
You already know that false unicorn is a popular traditional medicine used mostly by women to treat representative complications. But beyond this, fairy wand is also used as natural tonic for several other health issues.
Fairy wand for menstrual pains
Women usually face untold pain every month due to the monthly menstrual cycle. This regular event usually come with severe pains and discomfort. To stop this, or at least reduce the pain of menstruation, most women of native America usually drink the root tincture before and during the cycle.
The active components of false unicorn is mostly saponins, and triterpernoid. These and other components may be the reason for pain relief and fertility improvement which fairy wand is known for. Another such herb is velvet tamarind.
False unicorn improves female fertility
Women use fairy wand to treat infertility. This is due to various ways in which the plant root improves fertility. One of this ways is through to balancing of fertility hormones in your body.
When there is hormonal imbalance in a woman’s body, the chances of conceiving is extremely low. Fortunately for our dear women, false unicorn have been used extensively by traditional healers to treat hormonal imbalance, and help women conceive and have their own children.
But that is not all, this wonderful plant root is also potent for treating ovarian cysts. It can act s a weak estrogen or stimulate the secretion of more estrogen into the body. This way, it levels up the deficient estrogen level. Fairy wand also treat such other infertility complications as miscarriage, pelvic inflammation, endometriosis, vaginal discharge, and prolapsed uterus.
To use fairy wand for this purpose, make a herbal tincture of the roots, and rhizome. Drink this herbal mixture morning and at night, after dinner. Also consult your doctor for assessment.
False unicorn for men
Like women, like men! it seems that false unicorn is especially created to solve men and women health problems. For the men, fairy wand may not improve sperm production or sperm motility, but it solves an important aspect of men’s heath. False unicorn is an excellent remedy for enlarged prostate.
The presence of zinc and molybdenum in fairy wand make it a special one as both are rarely present in a herb. Studies has shown that both zinc and molybdenum possess potent antiproliferative effect on prostate cancer cells. Isn’t that a miracle from mother earth through false unicorn? Of course, if you consider the number of men who die every year due to prostate cancer, you would readily agree with me.
False unicorn delays menopause age
If you are a woman at your menopause stage, and wishes to have your ovulation cycle continue again, Then you may consider taking false unicorn root herbal tea on a regular basis. This is because the plant root has been said to possess the ability to restart your ovulation and menstrual flow cycle. The plant root also treats those health complications that comes with menopause. Such complications as depression, pains, and others can be taken care of once the root tea starts working in your body.
Kills bad intestinal worms
Some worms in our body are harmful and usually cause us great discomfort. When you become infested by harmful worms in your intestine, or even stomach, these worms can lead to diarrhea, abdominal pain, weakness, anemia and nutritional problems. In rare cases, they can affect your cognitive ability seriously.
Worms are not good, as they cause us discomfort, stomach upset, bloating of the stomach, and some times cause us to throw up. Using fairy wand herbal power or tea will kill the worms and leave your body healthy. On bad thing about worms is that they make it look like we don’t eat, whereas we eat voraciously.
False unicorn relieves morning sickness
Early pregnancy is characterised by early morning sickness, nausea, and tendency to always vomit. These possess grwat discomfort to women, especially those conceiving for the first time. Luckily, fairy wand powdered tea has been used to prevent this ugly scenario.
Fairy wand is also believed to expel worms, like tape worms and others that are likely to cause one to vomit.
For treating venereal infections
False unicorn is also good for treating some urinary tract infections. It is said that the herbal tincture is effective against gonorrhoea. So, you can drink the tincture if you’re treating sexually transmitted diseases.
Relieves sore throat
If you’re suffering sore throat, you should quickly boil fairy wand roots and drink the tincture morning and at night. It can stop catarrh and cough. It may also open up your nose with nasal passage if you drink the tincture.
What are the side effects of fairy wand root?
Although there not many studies on this special plant, fairy wand root is relatively safe for patients and normal people. However, when you drink the tincture or tea in an excess amount, certain side effects may occur such as:
- Nausea
- Tendency to vomit
- May cause abortion/miscarriage in pregnant women.
Hence, do not take false unicorn root tea if you are pregnant or breastfeeding a child. It is rather better to be safe than to incur more health complications.
How to grow and care for false unicorn plant
Although false unicorn is native to North America, it can be planted in pots on your balcony in any country of your choice, provided you make sure to provide all the environmental conditions that guarantee it growth and survival. For this reason, we shall look at all the climatic and soil requirements for its proper growth.
Fairy wand requires acidic soil
The first thing to consider when planning to grow fairy wand is the soil pH level. If the soil pH is basic, don’t even consider such land for your project. This is because false unicorn does not grow well in basic soil. False unicorn grows well in acidic and moist soil that is located in a place with enough shade in meadows, thickets, and woods. The soil must be sandy-loam, or hard wood-derived loam. The location should have well drainage system.
Propagation of false unicorn
Fairy wand is propagated by division of the rhizomes or through its seeds. The easier means of propagating the herb is through the rhizomes, as this ensure quicker growth and acclimatization. The planting of false unicorn is done in early Spring, or in Fall. The planting of the rhizome allows for a faster harvest.
The planting of false unicorn can be done in a pot or well dressed nursery bed. If you wish to plant your fairy wand in a pot, ensure that it is moist. The rhizome should be a bit beneath the surface of the earth. Also, the pot should be shaded until the new plants emerge. If the planting s done on bed, cover the rhizome with light earth crust until the emergence of new buds.
Pests control
Where you would likely face much challenges is with regards to pests. Another has to do with constant weeding of the farm for at least the first few years of their growth. To control the invasion of pests such as snails and slug, and deer, use standard pest control mechanism. Remember that with regard to weeding, there is no approved herbicide for the plant, currently. So you would be required to do hand picking of the weeds.
Harvest of fairy wand
The best time to harvest false unicorn is after four to eight years. It i usually harvested in the Fall, which allows for the picking of the seeds before digging out the roots/rhizomes. When harvested, shake the roots well to remove dirt. Then take absolute care to remove roots which are not false unicorn. This ensures that foreign roots are not included in the fairy wand roots.
After removing other roots and making sure your remove dirt from the roots, protect the false unicorn roots from sun, and heat. Do not by any chance allow the roots to dry out. Store your roots under shades and package for sell to the local markets.
References
Zhao, J., Wu, Q., Hu, X. et al. Comparative study of serum zinc concentrations in benign and malignant prostate disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sci Rep 6, 25778 (2016).
Cech, R. 2002. Growing At-Risk Medicinal Herbs. Horizon Herbs. Williams, Oregon. 314 pp.
