Sphagnum Moss

Also called

Peat Moss, Bog Moss, Sphagnum palustre

Traditional use

These are traditional uses, not proven treatments.

• Old European medical books record sphagnum moss being used:

  • As nappies and bedding for babies, because it soaks up urine well
  • As a dressing for wounds
  • Boiled with beer and applied as a poultice to swollen feet in older people

  When interest in medicinal mosses faded in the 1880s, sphagnum stayed in use as a source of wound dressings.[1]

Laboratory & animal research

Lab and animal results show what might be worth studying in people. They don't show that the herb has these effects in humans.

• Sphagnum dressings can soak up 3 to 4 times as much as cotton ones. Lab research suggests a sugar-like substance in the moss (sphagnan) binds to proteins, which may trap bacteria and switch off the harmful substances they release. This is a proposed explanation for its use on wounds, not proof from studies in people.[2]

  Technical detail: inactivation of enzymes by a Maillard reaction; the moss's complex pectin resembles immune-stimulating pectins from other wound-healing plants.