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Elecampane Inula helenium

Benefits | Preparation | Medicinal Uses | Side Effects | Plant | Folklore | Elecampane Remedies
buyBuy Bulk Elecampane From Mountain Rose Herbs

Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons
Common Names
Elecampane , Wild sunflower, Horseheal, Yellow Starwort
Botanical Name
Inula helenium
Family
ASTERACEAE or COMPOSITAE Sunflower family
Elecampane Medicinal Properties & Benefits
Common Uses: Asthma * Bronchitis * Congestion/Chest & Sinus * Cough * Lungs/Respiratory * Neuralgia * Parasites/Worms *
Properties: Antibacterial* Diuretic* Astringent* Expectorant* Antiparasite*
Parts Used: Root and rhizome, flowers
Constituents:Volatile oil (up to 4% including alantolactone, isoalantalactone and azulene), inulin (up to 44%), sterols, resin, pectin, mucilage


Use Elecampane tea to calm coughs

Elecampane is known best as as a respiratory tonic used as an expectorant to ease breathing and clear the lungs in cases of astmas, bronchitis and other pulmonary infections. A bitter tonic, elecampane also is used as a digestive herb, and was used in Europe was used in the manufacture of absinthe. Mabey, Richard ,48The active ingredient, helenin has been shown to have antiseptic properties.

Side Effects:
Highly allergenic in animals and humans with sensitivity to plants in the sunflower family.
How to Use: Elecampane
Preparation Methods :Decoction or tincture

remedyRemedies using : Elecampane

Elecampane for :Pumonary, bronchitis, asthma
Pumonary, bronchitis, asthma Present-day herbalists use the root of elecampane as a tonic for pulmonary complaints and for coughs. Elecampane is a safe home remedy for bronchitis and asthma

Adele Dawson, Herbs: Partners in Life (2000)

Elecampane for :Bronchial congestion
Bronchial congestion Elecampane, notably the phytochemical inulin, is a pretty good expectorant assisting in breaking up bronchial congestion. Inulin also aids in maintaining a good balance of intestinal bacteria.

James Duke, The Green Pharmacy Herbal Handbook (2000)

Elecampane for :Sciatica and neuralgia
Sciatica and neuralgia Elecampane used as an embrocation, it may be used externally for sciatica and neuralgia.

Adele Dawson, Herbs: Partners in Life (2000)

Elecampane for :Worms, roundworm
Worms, roundworm Elecampane treats parasitic infections, including roundworm, hookworm, whipworm and threadworm.

James Duke, The Green Pharmacy Herbal Handbook (2000)

Elecampane for :Scabies, skin diseases
Scabies, skin diseases Alantolactone in elecampane expels worms and the plant has long been used externally for scabies, herpes and other skin diseases from which it gained its country name scabwort.

Richard Mabey, The New Age Herbalist (1988)


Buy Bulk Elecampane Herbs, Extracts, Capsules and Oils
Certified Organic Elecampane
Inula helenium Origin- Canada Usually taken as a tea. Added to cough syrups, expectorants, herbal diuretics, pain remedies, and roborants (for bringing out color from pale skin). Can also be taken internally in the form of a capsule or extract.
buyOrganic Elecampane

Certified Organic Root It Away Cough Syrup
Designed to cut through the thickest chest and through congestion and get right to work on stubborn coughs.
buyOrganic Root It Away Cough Syrup

Honey and the following Certified Organically Grown and Wildharvested ingredients: Elecampane Root, Osha Root, Marshmallow Root, Horehound, Mullein and Fennel, and it contains 10 percent alcohol by volume.

referencesElecampane Medicinal Uses & Benefits
Asthma * Bronchitis * Congestion/Chest & Sinus * Cough * Lungs/Respiratory * Neuralgia * Parasites/Worms *
Plant Description

Koehler's Medicinal-Plants 1887
Koehler's Medicinal-Plants 1887

  • Flowers:Large, yellow, solitary or a few, 2 to 4 in. across, on long, stout peduncles; the scaly green in­volucre nearly 1 in. high, holding disk florets surrounded by a fringe of long, very narrow, 3-toothed ray florets.
  • Stem: Usually unbranched, 2 to 6 ft. high, hairy above.
  • Leaves:Alternate, large, broadly oblong, pointed, saw-edged, rough above, woolly beneath; some with heart-shaped, clasping bases.
  • Preferred Habitat:Roadsides, fields, fence-rows, damp pastures.
  • Flowering Season:July - September
  • Distribution:Nova Scotia to the Carolines, and westward to Minnesota and Missouri.

The elecampane has not always led a vagabond existence. Once it had its passage paid across the Atlantic, because special virtue was attributed to its thick, mucilaginous roots as a horse medicine. For more than two thousand years it has been employed by home doctors in Europe and Asia; and at first Old World immigrants thought they could not live here without the plant on their farms. Once given a chance to naturalize itself, no composite is slow in seizing it. The vigorous elecampane, rearing its fringy, yellow disks above lichen-covered stone walls in New England, the Virginia rail fence, and the rank weedy growth along barbed-wire barriers farther west, now bids fair to cross the continent.

Netje Blanchan Wild Flowers worth Knowing(1917)

Folklore, Myths and Legends
History and Traditions
historyElecampane has been used since the days of ancient Greece and Rome and was included in the U.S. Pharmacopeia as a remedy for bronchial congestion. The common name horse-heal may refer to this wild sunflowers traditional use in healing skin infections in horses and sheep. It grows in damp pastures and shady places throughout Europe, temperate Asia and North America. It was well cultivated in medieval herb and monastery gardens and was used in England before the Norman conquest. Immigrants to the New World brought the plant to North America with them.
folkloreThe Greeks named it Inula for Helen, wife of Meneluas, who was believed to have had an armful of the plant when Paris abducted her to Phrygia.
References:
Tillford, "Herbs for Pets", 127-128

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