Marshmallow: The Great Moistener

The Plant Path: Herbalism, Medical Astrology & Spagyric Alchemy

Sajah Popham

Alternative Health, Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.8 • 570 Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Marshmallow's Latin name is Althea, and its family name is Malvaceae. While Althea derives from the Greek altho and means to cure, Malvaceae is from the Greek word malake, which means soft. With these two simple words, you know almost everything about Marshmallow's key signature and how its softening and moistening effects impact the body and mind.

In today's episode, you'll learn:

What Marshmallow tastes like and how this corresponds to its actions in the body
Its unique influences on the mucosal membranes in the respiratory, digestive, genitourinary, and reproductive systems
The emotional indications of Marshmallow
Its associations with the Moon
How to prepare herbal medicine with Marshmallow
A simple and effective formula you can make yourself

————————————

CONNECT WITH SAJAH AND WHITNEY

————————————

To get free in depth mini-courses and videos, visit our blog at:

http://www.evolutionaryherbalism.com

Get daily inspiration and plant wisdom on our Facebook and Instagram channels:

http://www.facebook.com/EvolutionaryHerbalism

https://www.instagram.com/evolutionary_herbalism/

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyP63opAmcpIAQg1M9ShNSQ

Get a free 5-week course when you buy a copy of the book, Evolutionary Herbalism:
https://www.evolutionaryherbalism.com/evolutionary-herbalism-book/

————————————

ABOUT THE PLANT PATH

————————————

The Plant Path is a window into the world of herbal medicine. With perspectives gleaned from traditional Western herbalism, Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, Alchemy, Medical Astrology, and traditional cultures from around the world, The Plant Path provides unique insights, skills and strategies for the practice of true holistic herbalism. From clinical to spiritual perspectives, we don't just focus on what herbs are "good for," but rather who they are as intelligent beings, and how we can work with them to heal us physically and consciously evolve.

————————————

ABOUT SAJAH

————————————

Sajah Popham is the author of Evolutionary Herbalism and the founder of the School of Evolutionary Herbalism, where he trains herbalists in a holistic system of plant medicine that encompasses clinical Western herbalism, medical astrology, Ayurveda, and spagyric alchemy.

His mission is to develop a comprehensive approach that balances the science and spirituality of plant medicine, focusing on using plants to heal and rejuvenate the body, clarify the mind, open the heart, and support the development of the soul. This is only achieved through understanding and working with the chemical, energetic, and spiritual properties of the plants. His teachings embody a heartfelt respect, honor and reverence for the vast intelligence of plants in a way that empowers us to look deeper into the nature of our medicines and ourselves.

He lives on a homestead in the foothills of Mt. Baker Washington with his wife Whitney where he teaches, consults clients, and prepares spagyric herbal medicines.

————————————

ABOUT WHITNEY

————————————

Whitney Popham is an herbal practitioner and the co-founder of The School of Evolutionary Herbalism and Organic Unity. Her calling to plant medicine began from a deep passion for activism and a vision for creating healing and positive change in the world. She has devoted her life to that vision by being a humble vessel for the plants to touch people's lives and bring more healing and beauty into the world.

Through her own health challenges and struggles, she experienced the profound healing gifts of plant medicines and then committed her life to helping others reach vibrant levels of health. She specializes in digestive health in her clinical practice through working with herbal medicine, nutrition and lifestyle coaching. Her true gift is in listening to the plants through intuition and vision, which she uses to help her clients with healing on the emotional, psychological, spiritual, as well as physical levels of health.

————————————

WANT TO FEATURE US ON YOUR PODCAST?

————————————

If you'd like to interview Sajah or Whitney to be on your podcast, click here to fill out an interview request form.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the plant path, your window into the world of herbal medicine, with Saja and Whitney Popham, founders of the School of Evolutionary Herbalism.
0:25.6	Hey, what's up everybody?
0:26.6	Saja Popham here, founder of the School of Evolutionary Herbalism.
0:29.6	And we're in the garden today and the marshmallow is looking glorious in full flower.
0:34.6	So I thought we'd come down here, shoot a video, and share with you some of the
0:37.9	core properties of this plant. So marshmallow root, its Latin name is Althea officinalis,
0:45.3	and starting off talking about the taste of this plant. So marshmallow is really cool because
0:50.7	this is in Western herbalism, in my opinion, one of our best sweet tasting herbs.
0:58.2	We refer to it as a sweet tonic. And, you know, our concept in, I guess, Western culture of
1:04.4	the sweet taste, you know, we usually think of sugar, you know, like the taste of candy and
1:10.4	really sweet sugary things. But in the context
1:13.3	of herbal medicine, the sweet flavor is really like the taste of carbohydrate, right? So we would
1:20.0	really think of things like rice and potatoes, yams, like starchy root vegetables, all have the sweet taste.
1:29.3	And in Ayurvedic medicine, the sweet flavor is said to be composed of the earth and the water
1:35.1	elements. This flavor is said to help to rebuild and rejuvenate, replenish, and restore
1:42.9	tissues that have become weak, dehydrated,
1:47.0	atrophied, malnourished, essentially.
1:51.0	And so that sweet flavor has this rebuilding, restoring property, right?
1:57.0	We see that in the earth element, it's's nutrifying and the water element in the sense
2:02.9	that it is moistening and that sweet taste brings us to one of the core actions of of
2:10.3	marshmallow root that really is kind of the main thing that this plant does which is that it is
2:15.5	demulsant demulsants are really cool.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sajah Popham, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Sajah Popham and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.