ELECAMPANE (Inula helenium)

February 2005

ELECAMPANE (Inula helenium)

I saw elecampane throughout my travels in the Czech Republic and southern Poland. Years ago, I grew it from seed. It has an interesting history and was used as a medicinal herb throughout China, Europe, Asia, and by American Indians. Michael Weisham considers it one of the Ten Best Border Plants for the Period Garden. White Flower Farm sells it for $14.95. From the literature I have read, it is best used as a 4- to 5-foot tall decorative perennial or for worming.

Its history recalls Helen of Troy who carried a handful of elecampane on the day the Trojan prince Paris abducted her from Sparta, igniting the Trojan War. Hippocrates advocated its medicinal uses, as did the ancient Romans. The Roman naturalist Pliny said "let no day pass without eating some roots of elecampane to help digestion, expel melancholy, and cause mirth." The Roman physician Galen recommended the herb as "good for passion of the hucklebone" (sciatica). It was the main ingredient in a medieval elixir known as “potio Paulina", an allusion to St. Paul. Culpeper advocated its use for a myriad of cures. During the Middle Ages, it was a common ingredient in cordials. It is still sold as a candied confection (although now made of synthetic ingredients). It is advocated for "psychic power boosting" and added to love charms and amulets (especially powerful with mistletoe and vervain) according to some literature from internet sources.

I found few scientific sources for contemporary literature on elecampane, other than from London’s Pharmaceutical Press and the book Herbal Medicines; A Guide for Health-Care Professionals by Anerson and Phillipson (1996). They say there is no real evidence that it is effective for long-term treatment of respiratory diseases such as asthma and bronchitis. The only reported adverse effects of elecampane are occasional allergic reactions.

The main constituents of this herb are alantolacton, isolantolacton and other sesquiterpenlactones. The alantolacton is a better wormer than santonin and less toxic, say Steven Foster and James A. Duke in the Peterson Field Guide’s Medicinal Plants. In folk medicine, it has been called wild sunflower, velvet dock, scabwort, and horseheal. While its main medicinal use in folk medicine was for respiratory use, it has been advocated for a myriad of illnesses. A brief quote from Culpeper says:

…the root boiled well in vinegar beaten afterwards, and made into an ointment with hog’s suet, or oil of trotters is an excellent remedy for scabs or itch in young or old; the places also bathed or washed with the decoction doth the same; it also helps all sorts of filthy old putrid sores or cankers whatsoever. In the roots of this herb lieth the chief effect for the remedies aforesaid.

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