Asteraceae - Inula helenium. Elecampane
Elecampane, also called Horse-heal (Inula helenium), is a perennial composite plant common in many parts of Great Britain, and ranges throughout central and Southern Europe, and in Asia as far eastwards as the Himalayas. It is a rather rigid herb, the stem of which attains a height of from 3 to 5 feet; the leaves are large and toothed, the lower ones stalked, the rest embracing the stem; the flowers are yellow, 2 inches broad, and have many rays, each three-notched at the extremity. The root is thick, branching and mucilaginous, and has a warm, bitter taste and a camphoraceous odor. For medicinal purposes it should be procured from plants not more than two or three years old. Besides inulin, C12H20O10, a body isomeric with starch, the root contains helenin, C6H8O, a stearoptene, which may be prepared in white acicular crystals, insoluble in water, but freely soluble in alcohol. When freed from the accompanying inula-camphor by repeated crystallization from alcohol, helenin melts at 110° C. By the ancients the root was employed both as a medicine and as a condiment, and in England it was formerly in great repute as an aromatic tonic and stimulant of the secretory organs. As a drug, however, the root is now seldom resorted to except in veterinary practice, though it is undoubtedly possessed of antiseptic properties. Helenium grandiflorum (Gilib.), Aster officinalis (All.), Aster helenium (L.), Alant, Elfwort, Elf Dock, Velvet dock, Scabwort, Yellow starwort, wild sunflower, Elecampagne, Horseheal, Horse elder Elecampane is a large herbaceous perennial, indigenous to south-eastern Europe and western Asia but naturalised in Britain, Ireland and the north mid-west US. It has a thick, cylindrical, branched rhizome and an erect, sparsely branched, tough, furrowed stem, hairy in the lower part and downy above. The oval basal leaves narrow into a winged petiole, pointed at the tip and blunt-toothed at the edges. The alternate stem leaves are irregularly toothed at the ma
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