Usnea Lungs of the Forest
Usnea – The Lungs of the Forest. Wild Harvesting doesn’t stop in the winter, in fact making use of our wild winter storms here in the Pacific Northwest makes for abundant ethical harvesting. One of which is Usnea. Windstorms knock down branches from the canopies loaded with this medicinal lichen, and we harvesters can come along and gather the fresh vibrant thalli of Usnea. If they are yellowing or brown, they have been on the ground too long and are now decomposing and adding nitrogen back into the forest soil, so look for the vibrant green ones.
Usnea is a Lichen so its body, or thallus is comprised of a symbiosis of multiple fungi, an algae, and a cyanobacteria. And one of its roles in the ecosystem is to clean and purify the air, the lungs of the forest. Medicinally it is cooling and drying with an affinity for the lungs and can be used for Gram-positive bacterial infections (staph and strep) of the lungs, skin, vagina and digestive tract. The outer green sheath contains the antimicrobial constituents speeding healing and inhibiting, bacterial, viral (herpes& Epstein-barr) and fungal growth, while the white elastic-like central cord contains the immune boosting/modulating polysaccharides. Like all medicinal fungi, doing a dual extraction, containing both a hot water decoction and alcohol extraction is necessary to get the full spectrum of medicinal constituents. Usnic acid, the main constituent folks desire is not water soluble and needs alcohol to extract.
Usnea can be used for both acute and chronic immune system boosting. Acutely it has the ability to shut off bacteria’s ability to reproduce, and it can tonify the immune system so it can be supported while it’s doing its natural functions. Having said that, its not a great idea to be taking Usnea long term because it can negatively affect our beneficial bacteria, which will negatively affect our immune system. The health and strength of our immune system is largely responsible to our microbiome and the protection it gives us, keeping that healthy and intact is paramount!
Along with using Usnea for internal infections, it can be used for external washes for infections of the skin, including fungal infections. As well as ground into a powder and used to pack wounds to stop bleeding and prevent infections.
There are over 600 species of Usnea, longissima, barbata and wirthii, all grow in the Cascades, so after the next windstorm head out to the forests and gather some! I also have some for sale at my shop Usnea lichen — Wayside Botanicals
I highly recommend Stephen Buhner’s book Herbal Antibiotics and Scott Kloos book Pacific Northwest Medicinal Plants, and Peter McCoy’s book Radical Mycology for further reading.
Usnea Longissima