Botanical atlas

Epazote

Chenopodium ambrosioides

Long before it reached spice racks, epazote grew as a dooryard weed across Mesoamerica, and Aztec cooks folded its sharp, resinous leaves into pots of beans, believing it settled the stomach and eased the gassiness beans are famous for. Curanderas and household healers also turned to it as a folk remedy for intestinal worms, a practice so widespread that the plant's old common name, wormseed, comes directly from that use. Spanish colonizers carried it onward, and it picked up the nickname Jesuit's tea along the way. Today it survives mainly as a beloved, unmistakable seasoning in Mexican and Central American kitchens, its medicinal past remembered more than practiced.

Safety.

Epazote's essential oil is genuinely toxic and has caused fatal poisoning, especially in children, so it should never be taken as a concentrated oil, tea, or tincture. A few fresh or dried leaves cooked into a pot of beans, as in traditional Mexican cooking, is a normal seasoning amount, but avoid the plant entirely in pregnancy and keep it away from children.