March
Coneflower
Echinacea
by Allison Warning

Echinacea is the best-kept secret among Native American healing herbs.  No other plant is as potentially beneficial as an immune-boosting infection fighter.  The genus Echinacea encompasses nine species but only two are wide used medicinally, E. angustifolia and E. purpurea.  They are native to the Midwest and Great Plains from southern Canada to Texas, and from Ohio to Nebraska.  Both plants have black roots, single stems covered with bristly hairs, and daisy-like flowers with two dozen purple rays that radiate from dark con-shaped center.  Hence the common name, purple coneflower. 

The man who classified Echinacea was none other than Carl Linnaeus of Sweden, the father of modern binomial scientific nomenclature.  Linnaeus named the herb Rudbeckia purpurea in honor of his mentor at the University of Upsala, Professor Rudbeck.  The plant is still widely known in Europe as “Rudbeckia”. 

Contemporary herbalists tout the herb as a botanical antibiotic and immune stimulant for boils, colds and flu, bladder infections, tonsillitis, and other infectious diseases.  Many recommend taking the herb daily as a tonic, infection preventive and immune-system enhancer.  To make a decoction on Echinacea, gently boil 2 teaspoons of root material per cup of water then simmer 14 minutes.  Brink up to 3 cups a day.  Echinacea tastes slightly sweet at first, then bitter. 

Echinacea grows from seed or root cuttings taken in spring or fall.  Don’t cover seeds.  When the temperature is in the 70’s, simply tamp them into moist, sandy soil.  Echinacea grows in poor, rocky, slightly acidic soil under full sun, but it also thrives in richer soil.  It takes three or four years for roots to grow large enough to harvest.  Pull them in autumn after the plant has gone to seed.  Roots greater than ½ inch in diameter should be split before drying. 

(All the information for this month’s Herb of the Month comes for an article published in an old copy of “The Herb Quarterly” and was written by Michael Castleman) 

~ Submitted by Allison Warning