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Wikimedia Commons
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| Common Names |
| Elecampane , Wild sunflower, Horseheal, Yellow Starwort |
| Botanical Name |
| Inula helnium |
| Family |
| ASTERACEAE or COMPOSITAE Sunflower family |
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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, elcampane 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. |
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Prep Methods :Decoction or tincture
- Show All
- Elcampane root decoction
- Elecampane tincture
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| 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 414
(Dawson,Adele ) | | 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. 415
(Duke, James A, Ph.D. ) | | Sciatica and neuralgia | | Elecampane used as an embrocation, it may be used externally for sciatica and neuralgia. 548
(Dawson,Adele ) | | Worms, roundworm | | Elecampane treats parasitic infections, including roundworm, hookworm, whipworm and threadworm. 874
(Duke, James A, Ph.D. ) | | Worms | | 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. 1269
(Mabey, Richard p48) |
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| Side Effects: |
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| Highly allergenic in animals and humans with sensitivity to plants in the sunflower family. |
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Koehler's Medicinal-Plants 1887
- Flowers:Large, yellow, solitary or a few, 2 to 4 in. across, on long, stout peduncles; the scaly green inÂvolucre 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)
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 Elecampane 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. |
 The 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. |
Common Misspellings:
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Essential Oils
