Gravelroot
Where To Found It: Is indigenous to North
America, and common from Canada to Florida, growing in swampy and
rich low grounds, where it blossoms throughout the summer months.
This species varies greatly in form and foliage, the type being
very tall and graceful.
The stem is rigidly erect, usually about 5 or 6 feet high, though
sometimes even reaching a height of 12 feet, and is stout, unbranched
and either hollow, or furnished with an incomplete pith. It is purple
above the joints and often covered with elongated spots and lines
(this variety having been called maculata by Linnaeus). The
leaves, oblong and pointed, rough above, but downy beneath, are
placed in whorls of four or five on the stem (mostly in fives) and
are nearly destitute of resinous dots. The margins are coarsely
and unequally toothed, the leafstalks either short or merely represented
by the contracted bases of the leaves. The flowers are purple, in
a dense terminal inflorescence, the heads very numerous, five to
ten flowered, contained in an eight-leaved, fresh-coloured involucre.
It grows in low, swampy ground. There are over forty species of
the genus, many of which are used medicinally. The name is derived
from a king of Pontus, Mithridates Eupator, who first used the plant
as a remedy, and the popular name of Jopi or Joe-pye is taken from
an American Indian who cured the typhus with it.
The taste is aromatic, astringent, and bitter.
The roots should be collected in the autumn.
The chief constituent is Euparin. It is yellow, neutral, and crystalline,and
received the formula Cl2 = H11 = O3.
Eupurpurin, a so-called oleoresin, has been precipitated from
a tincture of the drug.
A tincture and a fluid extract are prepared.
Modern Uses: Diuretic, nervine. Formerly
the use of this purpleflowered Boneset was very similar to that
of the ordinary Boneset. It is especially valuable as a diuretic
and stimulant as well as an astringent tonic, and is considered
a valuable remedy in dropsy, strangury, gravel, hematuria, gout
and rheumatism, exerting a special influence upon chronic renal
and cystic troubles.
Other Names: Trumpet-weed. Gravelweed.
Joe-pye Weed. Jopi Weed. Queen-of-the-Meadow Root. Purple Boneset.
Eupatorium purpureum, trifoliatum, and maculatum. Eupatorium verticillatum.
Eupatorium ternifolium. Hempweed.
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