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Controversial Coneflower - Page 2

© Audrey Stallsmith

It looses its effectiveness if used constantly, however, so it is best to take it only when you know your body to be stressed, or when persons close to you are sick and you want to avoid contracting their illnesses. Since coneflower is also anti-inflammatory and encourages production of new tissue, it can treat cuts, burns, skin problems, and arthritis as well.

Many conventional doctors sneer that such herbs work only because the users believe they will. I suspect that is true of all medicines, though, both conventional and alternative. The Great Physician, after all, emphasized how much healing depends on faith. Because body, soul, and spirit are so interlocked, I suspect that all three have to be open to a remedy before it can help. So, if you trust your doctor and believe in the course of treatment he is prescribing, you are much more likely to benefit from it. If, however, you tell yourself that you are only going to get worse, your body will probably be happy to oblige you! Its job is, after all, to carry out commands from the brain.

Even if you're not into herbal medicine, you will discover that coneflower makes a robust ornamental plant for the garden. It is quite easy to grow in sandy, limey soil and full sun, and will often remain in bloom for a couple months.

Although echinacea does look something like a purple (actually magenta) daisy, its center is more dome-shaped and its petals tend to curve downward. Echinacea augustifolia, or "narrow-leaved coneflower" is the smaller, but more medicinally potent variety. It only grows to about two feet in height with two-inch flowers. Echinacea purpurea or "purple coneflower," on the other hand, can grow taller than three feet. Although its flowers are usually about four inches across one new variety, Ruby Giant, is reputed to produce 7-inch blooms.

Another recent innovation is a double-flowered echinacea known as Razzmatazz which some have called "the Holy Grail of the plant world." (In other words, though much sought-after, it is very expensive!) Although there have always been less well known white and yellow coneflowers as well as purple, a new variety, Orange Meadowbrite, is lauded as the first orange echinacea. Like Razzmatazz, it will probably make all of us gardeners slaver. Our shared mania for attaining new and exotic plants is, perhaps, the only contagion that coneflower won't help us fight!

Note: Echinacea pallida and echinacea purpurea photos are by Mimi Kamp, echinacea augustifolia photo by an unknown photographer, all courtesy of the Southwestern School of Botanical Medicine at http://www.swsbm.com/HOMEPAGE/HomePage.h...

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