Category: new plants

las equináceas sanadoras

The coneflowers have arrived, and Bogardus is in for a surprise! These amazing flowering plants belong to the genus Echinacea, and are in the family of daisies (Asteraceae). The 10 species of Echinacea are known as “coneflowers,” and are native to eastern and central North America; Rudbeckia, the genus of black-eyed susans, is closely related. Probably the best-known of the species is Echinacea purpura, purple echinacea. The growing range for some of the species extends deep into Mexico, although a lot of US maps weirdly show a boundary in Texas.

Field of purple coneflowers in the sunset

Echinacea has a long history of use in traditional medicine for treating infections, pain, and wounds; Traditional use included external application (insect bites, burns, wounds), chewing of roots (throat and tooth infections) and internal use (cough, pain, snake bites, stomach cramps). Some Plains tribes use Echinacea for cold symptoms; the Kiowa and Cheyenne use it for sore throats, and many nations used it as a pain medication. It’s not clear it helps with colds, but an overview of testing (meta-analysis) done in 2025 indicates that Echinacea purpura may in fact be good for respiratory diseases and ear inflammation–so it may be one of the many anti-inflammatory plants needing further research. My mom and I swear by echinacea tea for warding off colds, anyway!

The Latin name of the genus, Echinacea, comes from the Greek word echinos (ἐχῖνος), “hedgehog.” This is because of the central capitulum of the flower, which looks sort of like that spiny little animal. In reality,

Indian hedgehog

the ‘flower’ of the Echinacea is actually a cluster of dozens of flowers, or disc florets, arranged in a whirl on a cone shaped flower receptacle.  These individual flowers together make up what is known as a capitulum.  Echinacea, like all members of the Asteraceae family, have a capitulum surrounded by a whirl of several infertile ray florets.  The ray florets are commonly thought of as ‘petals’, surrounding the central ‘head’ of the Echinacea ‘flower’.

See the amazing Outdoor Learning Lab page, https://www.gcc.mass.edu/oll/plants/purple-cone-flower/ , for a lot more of the real science behind this composite flower, which is a characteristic of the daisy (asteraceae) family. The Dr. Robert L. Pura Outdoor Learning Laboratory is based at Greenfield Community College, in Greenfield, Massachusetts.

In other news, the two sister beds on Nagle are looking amazing–Ellen reports that they are twinning. Possible? You decide:

bed on Nagle
twin sister bed on Nagle

the (dormant) milkweed is here!

The milkweed is here! But shipped dormant–and may not pop up till next spring. What?

Milkweed (Asclepias is the name of the genus, named by Linnaeus in 1753 after the Greek god of healing, Asclepius, son of Apollo) is an amazing supermarket of nutrition for insects and animals, except for humans (for whom many parts of it are mildly toxic). It’s pollinated largely by wasps and bees, but also other insects. And, most famously, it is one of the favorite foods for monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) in their larval form. The parent butterflies lay their eggs on the underside of the leaves, to ensure their babies when hatched have plenty of food. In fact, milkweed even uses its magic medicine to ward off danger from the caterpillars: cardenolides, the very substance produced by many milkweed plants which is toxic to humans, in some studies appear to protect the baby monarchs from a dangerous parasite that can damage their wings.

Asclepias is aptly named: milkweeds have a long history of medicinal use for humans despite not being edible without careful cooking. The Omaha people from Nebraska, the Menominee from Wisconsin and upper Michigan, the Dakota from Minnesota, and the Ponca from Nebraska all traditionally used common milkweed (A. syriaca) for medicinal purposes. The bast fibers of some species can even be used for rope.

Now, the dormant thing: turns out, milkweed plants actually need to experience winter-like cold in order to stimulate spring growth. This means the best time to plant milkweed seeds is in the fall, so the cold temperatures and moisture that come with winter stimulate germination. You can plant milkweed in the spring if you chill it first–this is called “artificial stratification”; you are tricking the plant into thinking it has experienced the cold season already. So, with these new milkweed plants that just arrived in the mail in July, we’re going to simply have to put them into the soil and wait for winter (we decided not to jumpstart them in a refrigerator!).

They don’t look too promising at the moment, but we’re just going to have to wait for them to get comfortable. Ellen planted them today in one of the wildflower beds and in one of the Bogardus plots, along with some hemp.