Yellow echinacea as a medicine

Melissa Swartz
Melissa Swartz Posts: 270 ✭✭✭
edited November 2020 in Making Herbal Medicine

We have some yellow echinacea growing on our property, and this year I harvested some and have made it into a tincture. Has anyone had any experience with this type of echinacea? It has a very strong, medicinal smell (both the plant and the tincture). I'm planning to use it like purple echinacea, but it occurred to me that there may be other uses. I tried to find medicinal uses for it online, but everything I found just says it's rare and gives no uses. Ironically, it is growing rampantly and spreading like crazy.

Comments

  • Obiora E
    Obiora E Posts: 517 ✭✭✭✭

    @Melissa Swartz Do you know its Latin name?

  • nksunshine27
    nksunshine27 Posts: 343 ✭✭✭

    @Melissa Swartz its commonly called black-eyed Susan, botanical name for it should be rudbeckia hirta if its not the vine, it is like echinacea on steroids. purple echinacea is mellower and usually should be taken with cayenne powder hopes thai helps

  • Melissa Swartz
    Melissa Swartz Posts: 270 ✭✭✭

    @Obiora E , the Latin name is Echinacea paradoxa

    @nksunshine27 this is different from black-eyed Susan; I have that growing as well and they are different plants. This one is taller, with a true cone and down-turned petals.

    I found a site that says can be used for these (sounds similar to purple echinacea uses) :

    • Immune-stimulant and anti-viral.
    • It may be used as an anti-microbial anywhere in the body.
    • It activates macrophages, increases white blood cell levels and inhibits the enzyme that causes host cells to break down.


  • nksunshine27
    nksunshine27 Posts: 343 ✭✭✭

    @Melissa Swartz the botanical name for that one is different than the one o have on hand. i'm currently going through homegrown herbalist classes ( he also teaches marjory's medicne making class which is really good them teamed up together

  • Obiora E
    Obiora E Posts: 517 ✭✭✭✭

    @Melissa Swartz Thank you for sharing this information. I just looked it up.

  • Scott Sexton
    Scott Sexton Posts: 42 ✭✭✭

    @Melissa Swartz Most (maybe all) of the echinaceas have overlapping properties. I haven't used E. paradoxa. I try to leave the wild echinaceas alone, since they often suffer from over harvesting. However, you seem to have them growing all over, so that's great! I'm curious to see what you think of it. If you cut a piece of the root and stick it to your tongue, you may feel a tingling sensation. That's a good sign. If you try it, please let me know.

    @nksunshine27 I'm interested in your black-eyed Susan! The Black-eyed Susan around me is plentiful, but not especially potent. I had the impression that everyone's was like that. Can you tell me about where you harvest them, or any other details you might think are important? I'd like to figure out what's different. If I can find a similar situation over here maybe I could harvest more potent plants.

    Then again, my echinacea has a real kick to it. So maybe it's just unusually potent. 🤔 Plants certainly do have personalities.

  • nksunshine27
    nksunshine27 Posts: 343 ✭✭✭

    @Melissa Swartz there are 9 different species all with the inter changeable name of yellow cone flower or blackeyed susan, the rudbeckia laciniata and the hirta are in the same family and do the same as the echinacea angustifloria, pallida,purpurea,and paradoxa. some just grow wild in some areas and not as common in some. but thank you for the botanical name it gave me a chance to learn more about a different variety but it says its not in the Idaho area

  • nksunshine27
    nksunshine27 Posts: 343 ✭✭✭

    @Scott Sexton the name for the black eyed susan is rudbeckia hirta and rubeckia laciniata the latter being the root is harvested. according to studies and following doc jones these are more potent then echinacea. from what doc says echinacea pururea, it needs to be taken with something warming like cayene but the blackeyed susan is echinacea on steroids lol. there are 9 different species. i'm not sure where you are located at but i'm in idaho. rudbeckia hirta had been used for snake bites, tuberculosis, ear aches, skin irritants, stimulating the immune system, it does warn as with all the cone flowers not to take if you have auto-immune. hope this helped. happy herb hunting

  • Scott Sexton
    Scott Sexton Posts: 42 ✭✭✭

    @nksunshine27 I'd read about the native American uses. I want to say that it was used for rabies too, but don't quote me on that. I'm starting to wonder if I was just harvesting from a weird area or something. I'm sure I have the right species. Hmm. Interesting. I think I'll pop around to some different areas this year to see if I can find any variation. Thanks.

  • nksunshine27
    nksunshine27 Posts: 343 ✭✭✭

    @Scott Sexton ya know that brings up a point that doc jones mentions in one of his classes his analogy about the stinging nettle one time was there was one on the hill way away from the rest and it was really short but its sting was more than the tall ones down by the water, he also mentions about some yellow dock that you don't want to get it in a watery area where its easy to dig cause the roots don't pull up the minerals when its easy for them to live. so sometimes we want convenience and to grow the herbs that we want to wildcraft but they arent as potent some times cause we baby them so to speak

  • Melissa Swartz
    Melissa Swartz Posts: 270 ✭✭✭

    @Scott Sexton I will test the root for tongue tingling and let you know.

    We also have some wild Black-eyed Susan around us, but I have no idea what species so I need to do some research. I haven't tried harvesting any of it yet, but will make a point to grab some this year and see what happens.