Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Silverweed is a low, creeping plant in the rose family. Its leaves are feathery, with a silky silver underside. Single yellow flowers sit on short stalks through the summer.
It grows across Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. You find it on damp ground, farm tracks and sandy shores. Folk names include gåsemure (Norwegian), gåsört (Swedish) and tágamura (Icelandic).
In Nordic folk use, the leaf was brewed as a tea for loose bowels and cramps. Today the dried leaf is sold as a tea herb and, less often, as a tincture.
Traditional use is not proof that a plant works, and it is not proof that it is safe. For silverweed, human evidence is close to absent. Read the rest of this page as folk practice plus laboratory hints, not as treatment.
The main idea behind silverweed is astringency: tannins that make tissue feel tight and dry.
In test tubes, plant tannins bind to proteins on the surface of tissue. That binding can draw the surface together and cut weeping slightly. This is the standard reason folk healers used tannin-rich teas for loose bowels and sore mouths.
Whether that happens in your gut, at the strength of a cup of tea, has not been tested in people.
Extracts of silverweed show antioxidant activity in laboratory assays. In some animal work, plant sugars from the species lowered blood glucose (blood sugar). Animal and dish results do not tell you what a tea does in a person.
The old name "cramp weed" came from a claimed muscle-relaxing effect. No good human study supports that claim.
Most silverweed on sale is simply the dried leaf.
- Loose dried herb, brewed as a tea or infusion. - Tea bags, often in Nordic folk-herb blends. - Tincture, the herb soaked in alcohol.
- A cooled brew used as a mouth rinse or gargle. - A cooled brew used as a wash on intact skin. - Capsules, which are uncommon for this plant.
The root was eaten as a starchy food in hard years, not sold as a remedy. Products are rarely standardised, so strength differs between brands.
Silverweed had a long place in Nordic and wider North European folk practice.
Scandinavian healers brewed the leaf for loose bowels and stomach upset. The same brew was used as a gargle for sore throats and sore gums. Cooled, it was laid on grazes and small wounds.
It was also called cramp weed. Country users drank it for period pain and leg cramps.
The roots were dug and boiled as food in Iceland, the Faroes, Scotland and coastal Norway. In famine years they were a real calorie source. The Nordic names point to geese, which graze the plant heavily.
Older European herbals list the plant for the same handful of uses. That record shows what people did. It does not show that any of it worked.
Stop silverweed and see a doctor if any of these happen:
- Diarrhoea lasts more than two days, or returns again and again. - You see blood or black colour in your stool. - You have a fever with the diarrhoea. - You show signs of dehydration (too little fluid in the body): dizziness, dry mouth, very little urine. - The person affected is a baby, a young child, or frail and elderly. - A sore throat comes with high fever or trouble swallowing. - You get a rash, itching, or swelling of the lips or face.
Call emergency services for swelling of the mouth or throat, or trouble breathing.
In Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the EU, silverweed is sold as an ordinary herbal tea or food herb. It is not an approved medicine, and it has no European Medicines Agency herbal monograph. In the United States it would be sold as a dietary supplement, which is not reviewed for effect before sale.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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