Natural remedies › Scandinavian & Nordic Nordic and Scandinavian remedies: 186 plants and preparations, graded by evidence Nordic folk medicine is built out of what grows at high latitude and what keeps through a long winter: birch, spruce, juniper, bilberry and lingonberry, nettle, sphagnum moss, cloudberry. Much of it is food first and remedy second, which is why so many entries here are graded on dietary and observational evidence rather than trials - sea buckthorn and bilberry are the main exceptions. A practical caution specific to this tradition: several of these are external preparations tied to the sauna and the bath rather than things taken by mouth, and each page says which it is.
A A — consistent trial evidence 2 B B — some trial evidence 16 C C — limited or mixed evidence 34 D D — little evidence beyond tradition 18 – Insufficient evidence 113 Agarikon (larch bracket) Alpine bearberry Alpine bistort Alpine lady's mantle Arctic bramble (arctic raspberry) Arctic kidney lichen Ash Beard lichen / usnea (wound pad and salve base) Birch polypore Bird cherry Bird cherry (whisk and skin wash) Black alder (bark) Bog bilberry Bog bilberry (northern bilberry) Bog moss Bog moss / sphagnum Bog myrtle / sweet gale Bog sphagnum moss (wound and sauna dressing) Bogbean (poultice and wash for skin sores) Bogbean / buckbean Carrageen / Irish moss Chaga Chaga (birch canker polypore) Chives / wild onion Cinnamon rose hip Cloudberry Common juniper Common juniper (branch whisk, steam, wash water) Common orange lichen Common polypody Common puffball Common sorrel Crottle rock lichen Downy birch (classic vasta whisk) Dwarf birch Elder (flower wash, compress, sweat bath) European ash (bark and leaves) European aspen European aspen (leaf whisk, bath water) Field horsetail (bath herb, wash, scouring) Field mint Garden angelica (bath, steam, poultice; Sami staple) Giant puffball Goat willow Goat willow / sallow (bark wash, whisk) Greater burdock (leaf poultice, hair and scalp wash) Greater plantain (wound leaf, poultice) Grey alder Grey alder (bark) Grey alder (leaf whisk and steam) Guelder rose (bark) Guelder rose (highbush cranberry) Heartsease / wild pansy Heather (bath water, foot soak, whisk additive) Heather / ling Hooded tube lichen Houseleek (juice for burns, stings and earache) Iceland moss (poultice, wash, bath decoction) Juniper berry Lady's bedstraw Lady's mantle (bath and wound wash) Lyme grass Marsh cinquefoil Meadowsweet Meadowsweet (bath herb, sauna löyly infusion) Moss campion Mountain avens Mugwort (bath herb, whisk additive) Northern dock Oakmoss Peat moss Pedunculate oak (bark) Pineappleweed Red Belted Conk Reindeer lichen Rock tripe Rosebay willowherb Roseroot (Sami salve and wound application) Round-leaved sundew Rowan Rowan (bark and berries) Rowan (whisk, bath and protective wash) Rowan berry (mountain ash) Scots lovage Scots lovage / sea lovage Scots pine (inner bark) Sea buckthorn (berry and seed oil for skin and burns) Sea mayweed Sea plantain Sea sandwort Selfheal (wound and mouth wash) Silver birch Silver birch (sauna whisk, leaf baths) Silverweed Small-leaved lime Snow lichen Soapwort (washing and skin-cleansing decoction) Spruce Tips Stone bramble Sugar kelp Sweet gale / bog myrtle (bath herb, whisk additive) Tea-leaved willow Tormentil (astringent wash for sores and gums) Tree lungwort Turnip Water avens Water dock Wild angelica Wild pansy / heartsease (skin bath for eczema and crusts) Wild thyme (bath and steam herb) Wood cranesbill Wych elm (inner bark) Yarrow (wound wash, bath herb) Not every remedy names a tradition. Browse the full A–Z index for all 3,787 remedies, including the 255 with no recorded tradition.