The medicine cat's herbs
Catmint for greencough, deathberries for an enemy: the medicine cat's store of plants.
Herbs are the working tools of a Clan's medicine cat in Warriors, the cat who heals Clanmates as well as speaking with StarClan. The books name real plants and real uses: the authors took the cats' remedies from the herbal of the 17th-century English botanist and physician Nicholas Culpeper. Medicine cats and their apprentices gather the plants themselves and keep them in the medicine cat's den.
Quick Facts
- Affiliation
- ThunderClan
- RiverClan
- ShadowClan
- WindClan
- and later SkyClan
Lore & Background
Catmint is the remedy for greencough, a respiratory infection. In Long Shadows an outbreak hits ThunderClan after its own supply has been trampled in battle; a dream shows Jaypaw a fresh patch on WindClan territory, and Lionblaze fetches it. Herbs can give away secrets: the elder Mousefur recalls that Leafpool accidentally put a strange herb in her tansy soon after Jayfeather's birth, and she later notices the same herb on Jayfeather's pelt. Deathberries, the berries of the yew, are poison. Yellowfang uses them to kill her son Brokentail, and Hollyleaf tries to force Leafpool to swallow them. An apprentice's days are less dramatic: in The Sight, Hollypaw finds she prefers fighting to chewing up bitter herbs and gives up her place as medicine cat apprentice to her brother.
More in StarClan & Prophecies
Elsewhere in Warrior Cats
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