Sweet Clover

Sweet Clover (Melilotus officinalis) was used as medicine for thousands of years.  The ancient healers didn’t know the exact chemical components of this plant but used it anyway for a wide range of ailments like earaches, painful joints, wounds and other external or internal inflammations. The kings of England also benefited from the sweet clover’s medicinal properties and the plant is still named the King’s Clover in some regions of England.

Sweet clover is a tall, somehow invasive plant, with beautiful and very fragrant yellow flowers. It contains some important anticoagulant chemicals which the modern medicine isolated and made into an extremely useful blood thinner drug called warfarin.

The herbalists cut and dry the whole plant and use it in multiple forms and for multiple problems. The sweet clover powder is used as a mild sedative and it can be very helpful in cases of panic attacks, anxiety and insomnia. The infusion is used to treat hypertension and to reduce stress. It triggers the vasodilatation process and it has also a diuretic effect thus regulating the blood pressure. The anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory properties of the sweet clover are being used to treat thrombosis, varicose veins, and tromboflebitis and to prevent myocardial infarctions.

The sweet clover tea can reduce PMS symptoms and be of help to the digestive tract. It is very good in bad cases of bloating and flatulence; it has good effects of some inflammatory diseases of the digestive system like colitis.

The most important properties of the sweet clover remain the anticoagulant effects and mood regulator ones. It has some very beneficial effects on the human psyche by controlling anxiety, emotions, reducing stress, relaxing and soothing the nervous system.