Bright Eyes Grow Dim: Feeling the Loss of Euphrasia

written by Meg Madden 

Recently, The Elderberry’s owner, Jan, sent all her employees a screenshot from the Herbalist and Alchemist web-store where we at The Elderberry source many of the tinctures we don’t or can’t make in house. The photo was of H&A’s Eyebright tincture page, with a disclaimer that read “Sadly, we have had to discontinue EYEBRIGHT. After an extensive search we have not been able to locate a source of Euphrasia officinalis that meets identity confirmation through HPTLC testing by a qualified 3rd party lab.”

This quote elucidated something that had sort of been on the tips of our tongues but that we hadn’t had the chance to outrightly address in the store: good Eyebright is becoming harder and harder to come by. Furthermore, this more fundamentally highlights an ethical and practical problem of sourcing wildcrafted and/or endangered plants: even if you can get it, it’s not always high quality, what it says it is, or ethically harvested.

Before I begin to share what I know about Eyebright, I would like to address the issue of sourcing herbs, and why it’s important for us as a business to be diligent, thoughtful, and on top of the latest news in this department. In general, most of the herbs that we sell at the shop are easily obtained through reputable, organic sources. We do our utmost to keep it as local as possible (Gathered Threads, Innisfree, our own gardens), from there expanding to small, domestic, family-run farms (Oshala, Healing Spirits), and then to larger companies to source whatever we can’t get from the smaller places (Mountain Rose, Pacific Botanicals).

No matter where we get the herbs, we always make sure to have their Certificate of Analysis (COA) on hand so we can see where and when it was harvested, under which conditions and by whom, and we keep these on file as part of our rigorous quality control process. This is important for the reason presented by H&A above: sometimes you can’t get products that are what they say they are, are unadulterated, are ethically sourced, are uncontaminated, etc.

While this is less the case with herbs that grow abundantly and are easy to cultivate, it gets increasingly more complicated the harder an herb is to cultivate or find. There are several, often overlapping, factors that can contribute to this: that often it takes years for an herb to be mature enough to harvest (roots and bark), that some herbs you can only harvest once and then their life is literally over (roots), that some herbs only grow in very specific ecological conditions (chaga, ghost pipe), that some are overharvested by humans and therefore endangered or at-risk (eyebright, wild yam), and biases about wildcrafting versus cultivating, to name a few. Because of these factors, we are always being extremely thoughtful about sourcing and Sydney puts a lot of work into researching and connecting with excellent growers and distributors. Sometimes it works out and we’re able to find an elusive herb that meets our standards across the board. When we can’t, or when it seems ethically unjustifiable for us to carry it, we don’t carry it. 

Now, at the current moment, sadly this is the case with eyebright. Eyebright, or Euphrasia officinalis, is an annual plant that grows in cool, boreal meadow and woodland edge ecologies. Being an annual, hemiparasitic plant with a low seed germination rate and very specific plant partners and soil composition needs, cultivating and propagating eyebright is prohibitively challenging. Euphrasia officinalis is native to Europe and naturalized in the US, but according to Matthew Wood, has cousins in boreal regions of the US that can be used interchangeably, though they are also suffering the same fate.

Wood, in his Earthwise Herbal v. I indicates that Eyebright is overharvested and should be put on an endangered list, and this was back in 2008, so it’s been a number of years that reputable herbalists have known of its status. I myself remember being around eyebright for my whole life (and I was born smack in the middle of the ‘80s), between the little bit of herbalism my mom brought into the house combined with the little bit of homeopathy she called on when we were sick, and it’s well known enough as a magical and truly helpful herb that it became a commonly used household remedy.  

As the common name implies, Eyebright addresses maladies of the eyes, from dimming vision to conjunctivitis to seasonal allergies to physical injuries. Its properties are cool and astringent, which address excitation and relaxation of the tissues, respectively. It’s also used often for upper-respiratory issues that present with runny fluids and irritation.

Because of its incredible effectiveness and versatility, The Elderberry has historically incorporated Eyebright into two of our most sought-after formulas, AllerTea and SinuEase. These formulas are effective and supportive, and Eyebright factors into this significantly. While we are sad that our formulas are impacted, we are far more saddened by the fact that consumption has put such a powerful, delicate, and special herb in such danger. It’s in this spirit that we are researching herbs that will step into the space that Eyebright has left in our pharmacopeia. A heartening side to plant medicine is that there is almost always a plant or several that can be used in another’s place. While AllerTea and SinuEase are temporarily out of stock, we are busy reformulating and researching and will let you know when the new versions are ready and available.

Thank you for supporting us, and thus supporting not just our small business but the livelihood of folks in the Charlottesville area as well as the greater herbalist and herb farmer communities.

For more information about endangered medicinal plants, visit United Plant Savers. They have a comprehensive list of at-risk plants and are an excellent resource for anyone interested in the status and stories of medicinal native plants in the US.