Plant Description

History and Origin

Arnica montana is a yellow flower plant in the Asteraceae family. It grows at high altitudes (between 1200 and 2800 meters) in France as well as in Central and Eastern Europe (as far as Siberia). It is found in flinty and poor soils. Arnica is well established in the field of herbalism and has been used for centuries. Using the maceration oil gives access to a concentrate of the plant’s active molecules. The oil is also easy to add in a wide range of home remedies.

Plant Description

History and Origin

Italian Helichrysum or Everlasting is a perrenial plant. Helichrysum comes from the greek words "helios", sun, and "chrysos", gold, because its flowers look like little gold suns. It is found almost everywhere around the Mediterranean area and in Corsica, by the sea and inland. It is used for its particular biochemical compounds.

Plant Description

History and Origin

Originally the product of a natural hybridization between Mentha aquatica and Mentha spicata, peppermint is today a widely cultivated plant. Indigenous in Europe, it is now commonly found all around the globe as an adventitious plant. It likes humid and well-drained soils. In Egypt, some peppermint traces were found, dating back to as far as 1 000 years before J.-C. In Native medicinal tradition, it is used as analgesic (against colic, cramps and headaches), antiemetic, carminative, antipyretic and gastrointestinal tonic, as well as a remedy against flu and hemorrhoids and as a urinary disinfectant. Mitchum peppermint, very popular around the world, has its roots in Saint-Lawrence River Valley, in Québec.

Energetic and Emotional Effect

Peppermint is a general stimulant. Applied on the third eye chakra, it is inspiring and stimulates creativity while enhancing will and activity (solar plexus). Peppermint has a high level of compatibility with spruce. Peppermint’s energy soothes frictions and works on the barriers impeding the assimilation of new information. Symbolically, it allows the digestion of new thoughts and beliefs. Besides, peppermint contributes to chasing fears away from the mental body; it calms mental chattering and dissipates confusion.

Plant Description

History and Origin

From the family of Rutaceaes and originally from South-East Asia and Europe, petitgrain is the name given to essential oils extracted by steam distilling the leaves of lemon, mandarin and bitter orange trees. Each of these trees provides three different essential oils depending on the part used. The leaves produce petitgrain, the flower, neroli and the peel, the zest oil. Petitgrain is used in high grade Colognes.

Plant Description

History and Origin

Rosemary is a shrub of the lamiaceae family native to the Mediterranean area.Its stem, that can reach two metres in length, is covered with a greyish bark and divides into opposing branches. Its leaves are longer than they are wide, with slightly rolled edges. Its blue flower spikes blossom from January to May. The name "rosemary" derives from the Latin for "dew" (ros) and "sea" (marinus), or "dew of the sea".

Rosemary has been one of the first plants widely used therapeutically, for cooking as well as for its pleasant aroma. As an example, in Ancient Greece, rosemary sprigs were burnt as incense at shrines. In the Middle Age, it was used to treat respiratory and circulatory disorders, liver congestion, muscular and rheumatic pain as well as skin and hair problems.

Plant Description

History and Origin

Scotch pine is indigenous in Eurasia and cultivated in Eastern United-States, Europe, Russia, Scandinavia, Finland, and Canada. It is now considered naturalized in parts of New England and the Lake States. In Quebec, its future is uncertain. Because of its lack of adaptation, it can hardly multiply naturally. Pine seeds are known to be an excellent fortifier for consumptive and recovering people.

Aromatherapy 

Plant Description

History and Origin

 Already used by Dioscoride in the 1st Century of our Age, lavender has long been renowned as a medicinal plant. The term “Lavender”, from Latin “lavare”, appears in the Middle-Age. For a long period, people thought that bad smells were associated with disease, so essential oils started to be used to fight “diseases”, as a therapeutic product. In that time, Lavender was found in the gardens of Monasteries where, with other aromatic plants, it was used for medicinal purposes. Lavender picking is mentioned around the topic of herbalism in texts dating back to the XIVth Century. In the XIIIth Century, the development of the faculties of Marseille and Montpellier played a critical role on the path to knowing the properties of local plants. Lavender essential oil was used for its therapeutic properties both internally and externally during the plague epidemic, in Provence.

Energetic and emotional action

Aspic lavender dissolves mental rigidity, lack of tolerance and open-mindedness. It helps transform mental patterns. It heals wounds of the subtle bodies.

A wild True Lavender essential oil carefully hand-picked in southern France on the high Larzac Plateau. An exceptional oil. 

Plant description

History and Origin

True Lavender is a subshrub growing on the dry and sunny hillsides of southern France and other countries around the Mediterranean Sea. It comes with a long-standing reputation as a popular remedy. Known since Roman Antiquity as a perfume and aromatic, Lavender was named from Latin term lavare (meaning “to wash”). Not only using it to perfume linen, Romans also used it in private and public baths. But lavender was also known as a popular remedy against digestive disorders as well as a cosmetic care and insect repellant.

Plant Description

History and Origin

Our Northern wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens) likes to grow in coniferous regions; and it grows better in sandy soils. Its generic name has been given for Jean-François Gaulthier (1708-1756), botanist and King’s physician in Quebec. He was the one who communicated the existence of the plant to Linné through Pier Kalm. Wintergreen grows as a shrub below 20 cm tall and bears between June and July white flowers that transform into tiny red fruits. Its leaves are evergreen, and that is where its common name came from “Wintergreen”. Wintergreen is present in Canada, Asia and Central America, where it grows much taller. For distillation, it would not be wise to collect the resource here, since it is so reduced in size. That is why the essential oil is imported from Nepal, where it grows abundantly in the wild and in altitude