Echinacea
Where To Find It: America, west of Ohio,
and cultivated in Britain.
Named Echinacea by Linnaeus, and Rudbeckia, after
Rudbeck, father and son, who were his predecessors at Upsala.
The flowers are a rich purple and the florets are seated round
a high cone; seeds, four-sided achenes. Root tapering, cylindrical,
entire, slightly spiral, longitudinally furrowed; fracture short,
fibrous; bark thin; wood, thick, in alternate porous, yellowish
and black transverse wedges, and the rhizome has a circular pith.
It has a faint aromatic smell, with a sweetish taste, leaving a
tingling sensation in the mouth not unlike Aconitum napellus,
but without its lasting numbing effect.
Oil and resin both in wood and bark and masses of inulin, inuloid,
sucrose, vulose, betaine, two phytosterols and fatty acids, oleic,
cerotic, linolic and palmatic.
Modern uses: Echinacea increases bodily
resistance to infection and is used for boils, erysipelas, septicaemia,
cancer, syphilis and other impurities of the blood, its action being
antiseptic. It has also useful properties as a strong alterative
and aphrodisiac. As an injection, the extract has been used for
haemorrhoids and a tincture of the fresh root has been found
beneficial in diphtheria and putrid fevers.
Other Names:Black Sampson. Coneflower.
Niggerhead. Rudbeckia. Brauneria pallida (Nutt.).
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