Elecampane
Inula helenium
From Missouri
Native to Europe and northern Asia has naturalized in fields, clearings, disturbed sites, roadsides and waste places in parts of eastern North America from Nova Scotia to Minnesota south to North Carolina and Missouri. It typically grows to 3-6' tall. It is noted for having coarse, toothed, rough-hairy leaves (thin hairy above and velvet-hairy beneath). Ovate-elliptic basal leaves typically grow to 1-2' long on petioles extending to as much as 1' long. Ovate-lanceolate stem leaves are much shorter and sessile, decreasing in size from the bottom to the top of the central rigid hairy stalk. Sunflower-like flowers (2-3" diameter), each subtended by broad floral bracts, feature numerous very thin,
scraggly yellow rays which surround a center disk of darker yellow tubular flowers. Flowers bloom July-September. This plant has a long and interesting history as a medicinal herb wherein the rhizomes and roots were at one point used in a large variety of medical applications, primarily in the treatment of a large number of respiratory-type ailments. The root is used today in France and Switzerland as a flavoring for absinthe.
