SneezeweedHelenium autumnale
From Nearctica
Identification: Flowers yellow with short and stubby ray florets. Each ray floret with 3 scallops at its apex. Rays hanging downward (reflexed). Disk yellow, rounded, button shaped. Plant branched. Leaves elongate tapering to both base and apex and with outer margin toothed. Plant 2 to 5 feet in height.
Distribution: Throughout most of North America.
Habitat: Sneezeweed is found primarily in wet meadows and swamps, but sometimes also occurs in thickets.
Flowering period: August to October.
Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.—Tonic, diaphoretic, and errhine. Reputed valuable in chills and fever and other febrile diseases. The whole plant possesses errhine properties, but the flowers, particularly the florets of the disk, are the most active, and may be used, in powder, as a snuff, in headache, incipient coryza, catarrh, deafness, and other affections where errhines are desired.
