Natural Pain & Inflammation Management — With Plant-Based Salicylates
- Cole Schoonover
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Inflammation is a natural alarm system in the body. It’s the signal that something needs attention—heat, swelling, redness, stiffness, or pain are all ways your body calls for repair. In the right amount, inflammation protects us. But when the signal becomes too loud, too long, or too constant, it begins to cause wear on the tissues it once tried to help.
When Inflammation Becomes Chronic
Acute inflammation is meant to be short-lived—a burst of activity that helps the body fix what needs fixing. But for many people today, inflammation has shifted from a momentary response into a constant background hum, leaving them feeling foggy, tired, puffy, reactive, and drained.
Chronic inflammation can be fueled by many pressures of modern living:
Leaky gut & food sensitivities, where the intestinal barrier becomes porous and immune activation becomes ongoing
Chronic stress, which keeps cortisol elevated and prevents inflammatory resolution
Lack of rest, repair, and basic self-care, leaving tissues without the resources to recover
When inflammation becomes chronic, even minor stresses take longer to heal. The body is already overwhelmed. This is why tending inflammation regularly—before it becomes debilitating—helps us recover faster and maintain clearer, steadier health.
How Plant Constituents Influence Inflammation
Plants communicate in chemistry—tiny molecular signals that shift inflammatory pathways, reduce pain messaging, and encourage the body toward repair. Many plant constituents work by:
Blocking or softening pain signals
Redirecting inflammatory cascades
Supporting resolution rather than escalation
The Forest as Medicine: Boreal Spring
And beautifully, we don’t always have to ingest plants to receive these messages. As Diana Beresford-Kroeger shares in Our Green Heart, the Boreal Spring is a wave of volatile plant compounds released by northern trees as their buds swell and their chemistry awakens. These molecules—many anti-inflammatory and stress-modulating—float into the surrounding atmosphere.
Simply walking through the forest, breathing slowly, is enough to let these signals settle our nervous systems and cool inflammation. The forest becomes medicine through the air itself.
Salicylates: A Closer Look
One of the most influential plant constituents for inflammation is the salicylate group. Salicylic acid is a core signalling molecule within the plant world—an ancient chemical language used for defence, communication, and repair. Humans respond similarly: salicylates shift inflammatory pathways, ease pain mediators, and support resolution.
The Willow Family (Salicaceae): Carriers of Salicylate Wisdom
The Willow family—Salicaceae—is one of the richest families for naturally occurring salicin. This includes not only classic willows (Salix spp.) but also poplars, aspens, and several smaller shrubs within the family.
Family traits often include:
A preference for water — growing along rivers, moist forest edges, wetlands, and floodplains
A tendency to spread through cloning, especially willows and aspens, forming large interconnected colonies
Resin-rich buds (especially in poplars), carrying volatile salicylates and other aromatic compounds
Fast growth and rapid response to environmental stress
These traits reflect a family evolved to survive dynamic environments—floods, herbivory, cold climates, and fast-changing conditions.
A Deeper Look at Salicylate Signalling
Salicylates are especially concentrated in colder climates—particularly the Boreal forest—where plants rely heavily on chemical messaging to cope with environmental stress. A beautiful example of this communication happens in spring:
When the tender young leaves of willow or poplar are eaten by herbivores like deer, the tree rapidly releases volatile salicylates into the air. These molecules drift to neighbouring trees, acting as a warning signal of oncoming predation. In response, those trees begin producing higher levels of salicylates in their own tissues—making themselves less appealing and strengthening their defences. It is a forest-wide conversation: a chemical language moving through the wind.
Salicylates Beyond the Willow Family
Because this molecule is so essential to plant communication, it also appears—often in smaller amounts—in many other species. Examples include:
Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens)
Sweet Birch (Betula lenta)
Dogwood (Cornus spp.)
Heartsease / Wild Pansy (Viola tricolor)
Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria)
Yet the most potent, resin-rich, and medicinally significant salicylate sources remain in the colder northern climates, especially within the Willow family. This is why Black Poplar Bud Oil plays such a key role in my Muscle Ease Oil—its resinous buds are dense with salicin-rich compounds that warm, soothe, and ease tension. And why Sweet Birch essential oil, featured in my Arthritis Hand & Foot Soak, offers such deep relief for inflamed joints.
Next Month's Post: Poplar Harvest Around the Corner
As we move toward the first harvest of the new year, keep an eye out for next month’s post—it's one you won’t want to miss. I’ll be sharing a beautifully detailed Harvest & Use Card for the Salix family, along with a step-by-step infused oil recipe so you can learn to make your own potent oils from both fresh and dried plants. This harvest window is short and precious, arriving anywhere from late January to late February depending on the year, so now is the time to prepare. Join me next month and step into the season with your baskets ready.
A Final Thought: Learning the Language of Plants
The more we attend to nature, the more we realize how plants, animals, and humans are not so different. We all signal, communicate, warn, soothe, protect, and seek balance.
One of my greatest loves as an herbalist is helping people remember this—to see that plants are speaking to us every day. We simply need the language to understand what they’re saying. And once we learn it, the forest becomes a living conversation, full of messages meant to guide, soothe, and support us.
If this type of content interests you I highly recommend reading Our Green Heart by Diana Beresford-Kroeger, she has a background in both druidic and scientific education and brings a beautiful perspective to plants (and is located in Ontario!).
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