{"id":3233,"date":"2025-12-20T14:43:50","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T22:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/?p=3233"},"modified":"2025-12-20T17:24:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T01:24:33","slug":"plant-of-the-week-common-self-heal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/2025\/12\/20\/plant-of-the-week-common-self-heal\/","title":{"rendered":"Plant of the Week: Common Self-heal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NOTE<\/strong>: Prunella vulgaris ssp. lanceolata<\/a> is native to the Pacific Northwest (and much of the rest of the U.S.), unlike the straight vulgaris, which is Eurasian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This week, we will be featuring common self-heal, Prunella vulgaris<\/em>. Other common names include heal-all, woundwort, heart-of-the-earth, carpenter\u2019s herb, brownwort, and blue curls. This perennial, low growing, herbaceous flowering plant has a native range that extends from the lower 48 states to Alaska, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Spikes arise from this low growing plant that have many overlapping flowers that range in coloration from light lilac purples to dark almost blue (1). As a member of the mint family (Lamiaceae), these plants have square stems, a rather distinct characteristic of mints (but not always!). Although it is often considered a weed in lawns, it is a welcome addition to most gardens. In fact, during some of our research this summer (you can read about that here: Science Behind the Scenes: Pacific Northwest Pollinator Gardens<\/a>), it was one of the top 10 most commonly planted species in all of our garden study sites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Picture
Prunella vulgaris<\/em> flower dissection with labeled parts, flower spike (inflorescence), and pollinator visitors (2).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Prunella vulgaris<\/em> is edible and has a rich history of medicinal use all over the world, especially for sore throats. The name Prunella<\/em> is derived from the word \u2018Brunella\u2019, which is a derivative of the German name for diphtheria (die Br\u00e4une), which it was used as a treatment for (3). Prior to colonization of the Americas, the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest used the juice of the plant to treat boils on the skin as a salve, and teas and infusions for sore throats (4). It has also been used as medicine across the world, such as traditional Chinese medicine, and is still a common ingredient in Chinese herbal teas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Prunella vulgaris<\/em> in a garden, picture taken by Anna Janowski.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As with many plants in the mint family, bumblebees are pretty big fans. Other bee genera that are commonly found on these plants are Ceratina<\/em>, Lasioglossum<\/em>, and Anthidium (5). <\/em>Common self-heal is a hardy, self-seeding plant that can find a place in any garden and can also enhance turfgrass lawns with floral resources to support diverse wild bee communities (6). To encourage more blooms and manage self-seeding, try deadheading in areas you\u2019d not like the plant to spread to, and these plants will make for a pleasant botanical understory for your garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. TWC Staff. (2023). Plant database: Prunella vulgaris. Wildflower Center. Accessed 15 December 2025 from: https:\/\/www.wildflower.org\/plants\/result.php?id_plant=PRVU<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Ling TC, Wang L-L, Zhang Z-Q, et al. 2017. High autonomous selfing capacity and low flower visitation rates in a subalpine population of Prunella vulgaris (Lamiaceae). Plecevo. 150(1):59\u201366. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.5091\/plecevo.2017.1274<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Gledhill D. 2008. The names of plants. 4th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Fagan D. 2019. Wildflowers of Oregon: A Field Guide to over 400 Wildflowers, Trees, and Shrubs of the Coast, Cascades, and High Desert. 1st ed. Blue Ridge Summit: Globe Pequot Press, The.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Basman A, Rampton RW, Melathopoulos A, Best LR. MELITTOFLORA | College of Agricultural Sciences. Melittoflora Version 1.0. [cited 2025 Dec 15]. Available from: https:\/\/agsci.oregonstate.edu\/bee-atlas\/melittoflora<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Wolfin J, Watkins E, Lane I, et al. 2023. Floral enhancement of turfgrass lawns benefits wild bees and honey bees (Apis mellifera). Urban Ecosyst. 26(2):361\u2013375. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s11252-023-01339-7<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    NOTE: Prunella vulgaris ssp. lanceolata is native to the Pacific Northwest (and much of the rest of the U.S.), unlike the straight vulgaris, which is Eurasian. This week, we will be featuring common self-heal, Prunella vulgaris. Other common names include heal-all, woundwort, heart-of-the-earth, carpenter\u2019s herb, brownwort, and blue curls. This perennial, low growing, herbaceous flowering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14871,"featured_media":3234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1295190,1178798],"tags":[1295412],"class_list":["post-3233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-native-plants","category-plant-of-the-week","tag-plant-of-the-week","has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2786\/files\/2025\/12\/Prunella1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14871"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3233"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3242,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3233\/revisions\/3242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}