Outdoor Elements
What is Amowesh? With Cusi Ballow
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Bee Balm has a name with a story! Cusi Ballew shares the Potawatomi name for Bee Balm, Amowesh, and explains how the plant’s name connects to the Potawatomi language and his own uses for this versatile plant.
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Outdoor Elements is a local public television program presented by PBS Michiana
Outdoor Elements
What is Amowesh? With Cusi Ballow
Clip | 6m 26sVideo has Closed Captions
Bee Balm has a name with a story! Cusi Ballew shares the Potawatomi name for Bee Balm, Amowesh, and explains how the plant’s name connects to the Potawatomi language and his own uses for this versatile plant.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipThis one here is, you know, common name is bee balm, and it's Latin name is monarda fistulosa, I believe.
And in our language, we would call it ze sabuk, talking about that spicy leaf.
Or a more direct translation of bee balm would also be amawish, like bee plant, bee balm.
And the bees do love it for its nectar.
And.
I'm no botanist, but if you look at the flowers, they have this section that sprays out the top and has the pistil and the stamens, and then it has this lower lip, but to me it always looks like one of those hats people sometimes wear, those foam hats with a bunch of stuff coming out of the top, you might see them at sports.
Thing or something like that, but it all sprays out like a fountain out of the top of the flower.
And it's this kind of light purple that almost looks faded, like a faded lavender.
Both the leaves and the flowers of this plant, and also, well, you can see here that it's got opposite leaves, opposite alternating leaves, so they go down, and then they switch direction, switch direction, but they come out the stem opposite of each other.
And ... The leaves and the flowers, when I'm harvesting, I'll harvest some leaves and some flowers.
And I often use it for tea, but fresh, these leaves can be also used, you know, on meats.
It's a lot like oregano, in a sense.
If you've ever had fresh oregano it kind of burns.
Zissa book here being called spicy leaf You know if you chew this leaf fresh You know it burns for a second, and it's and it got a really savory almost minty minty feel, but a savory flavor and It is a native plant to our meadows here.
And it is, I want to say, and I believe it is the most antibacterial plant that we have growing here in Michigan, or possibly in the Great Lakes region.
They did a study one time where They took garlic, known to be pretty antimicrobial.
Microbial, antimicrobial, and antibacterial.
And they put it in a petri dish, and then they put this in another petri dish, and they put some bacterias in there.
And the zisabuk had a larger ring of no bacteria than the garlic did.
The bacteria were able to get closer to the garlic.
Um, and, uh, and... It makes a delicious addition to any tea.
I like it as a hot tea or an iced tea.
And a lot of times, when you find it, it will be abundant, but not always.
And it's always important to remember when you're harvesting.
Um, to... In whatever way you see fit, to say thank you to the plant.
When I harvest, I always try to let the plant know why I'm harvesting.
You know, what I hope to do with what I harvest.
You know, and sometimes, like I said, that's just to keep on hand for people who might need an antibacterial or antimicrobial addition to their tea or just for flavor in teas.
But it's important that when you do harvest, you harvest in places where you find abundance and that you leave a lot more than you take, right?
So if there are five plants, don't harvest.
If there are 50 plants, don't harvests more than five or 10.
You know especially knowing that someone else may come and harvest.
And each time, that number grows smaller.
So always look for the most abundant place where you can find a plant to harvest.
I wouldn't say that Amoish is at risk, but the more abundance, the better.
It's a great plant, both for native bees and honeybees and various other beetles and mosquitoes.
I know people don't like to think about mosquitoes, but mosquitoes are one of the early pollinators, male mosquitoes.
It's an important food source for them.
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