FEATURED HERB REVIEW
St. John's Wort (Hypericum Perforatum)

Range and Habitat

Resembling a black-eyed Susan, echinacea or purple coneflower is a North American perennial plant that is indigenous to the central plains where it grows on road banks, prairies, fields, and in dry, open woods. The flowers are a rich purple, and the florets are seated round a high cone; the seeds are four-sided achenes. 

Root tapering, cylindrical, entire, slightly spiral, longitudinally furrowed; fracture short, fibrous; bark thin; wood, thick, in alternate porous, yellowish and black transverse wedges, and the rhizome has a circular pith. It has a faint aromatic smell, with a sweetish taste, leaving a tingling sensation in the mouth not unlike Aconitum napellus, but without its lasting numbing effect.

The principal parts of the plant used medicinally are the root, rhizome, leaves, flowers, and seeds. The name Echinacea is derived from the greek meaning 'hedgehog', referring to the sharp pointed bracts of the receptacles.