Planting the Future

ECHINACEA

Echinacea spp.

STEVEN FOSTER

The year 1980 marked my first summer in Arkansas. What a summer it was! I had spent the previous year in California, where I had moved at age twenty-one from my home in Maine. That year was the hottest summer on record in Arkansas. In June alone we had twenty-five days in a row with temperatures over 100. By July even the oak trees were wilting. Still, one roadside wildflower seemed to survive the drought better than any other. It caught my eye—echinacea.

Ed Smith, known to his friends as Herbal Ed and the founder of Herb Pharm, first introduced me to echinacea as an herbal medicine back in the mid-1970s when I took a class from him in Boston. At that time he ran his business out of a fishing tackle box. His passion for herbal medicine was infectious. Ed had with him a tincture of echinacea made by Alfred Vogel’s Swiss company Bioforce, which has sold herbal products since the late 1930s. It was the first echinacea product I had tasted. Ed inspired me to dig deeper into the history and use of this plant.

I was already focused on the botany, cultivation, and historical uses of herbs from the four years spent at the herb department of the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community in Maine, where I began my career in 1974 at age seventeen. Echinacea did not grow in Maine and at that point was a relatively uncommon garden perennial. I paid little attention to it then. It, like hundreds of other herbs, was to my mind little more than an historical footnote. So when I got to Arkansas in 1980, it caught my eye. Not only did it survive the drought, but it was one of the state’s most beautiful wildflowers.

I soon learned that echinacea was a group of plants, not just one type. Echinacea is a genus of nine species found exclusively in North America. Arkansas happens to be near the center of the genus’s geographical range, with five of the nine species native to the state. A friend of mine, the late Richard Davis, a botanist who worked for Arkansas’s Natural Heritage Program, came to visit me at my remote home in Izard County, Arkansas. His job was to look for locations of rare plants in Arkansas. We decided to search for E. paradoxa, a species endemic to the Ozarks that had not been collected since the mid-1940s. We went to a location historically known for the plant, and found it. My interest was piqued.

One of the reasons I decided to settle in the Ozarks was the area’s flora. I love the plants here. In the Ozarks our flora is dominated by the eastern deciduous forest, a mix of oak, hickories, and other hardwoods. On north-facing slopes we find important American medicinal plants such as ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), and black cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa). We have elements of the Southwest, such as Ashe’s juniper, prickly pear cactus, and yucca. The southern pine forests from the West Gulf Coastal Plain also contribute to the Ozarks’ plant collection. Since the Ozark region is an ancient landmass not flooded or glaciated for more than two hundred million years—about the time that flowering plants first appeared on earth—these hills have many endemic plants (species that occur only in the Ozarks, not elsewhere). Our dry limestone hillsides also have lots of glades—open, miniature prairielike habitats that harbor dozens of species associated with the Great Plains. The Ozarks were a great place for a fledgling herbalist to settle.

My interest in echinacea grew. For more than twenty-five years, I have collected herb books, and I became fascinated by the writings of the Cincinnati pharmacist John Uri Lloyd (1849–1934). My friend Ed Smith, who shared a passion for old books, sent me a photocopy of a Lloyd publication called A Treatise on Echinacea, published in 1921. This gave me the historical foundation to pursue a major study of echinacea. In 1984 that study resulted in a little thirty-one-page book I wrote called Echinacea Exalted! The Botany, Culture, History and Medicinal Uses of the Purple Coneflowers.

While I have worked with many plants over the past quarter century, the main group that I have studied is the Echinacea genus. My interest in this genus turned to concern when in the early 1980s I observed dramatic declines in roadside populations of echinacea, particularly in Missouri, where it was heavily wildcrafted for the commercial herb trade. Concern led to action. In 1983 and 1984 I wrote letters to conservation agencies and officials in midwestern states where the plant was being harvested. No one was seriously interested in protecting echinacea. It was not endangered, nor was it on rare-plant lists in these states. Budgets were minuscule for plant conservation and it was a low priority. I also wrote to Dr. Ronald K. McGregor, now professor emeritus at the University of Kansas. Dr. McGregor was at that time the last botanist to have monographed the genus. I wrote to him about my conservation concerns and he responded with a thoughtful letter. One comment struck me. Dr. McGregor wrote, “If Echinacea had a little fur and cute little black eyes, one could elicit a little attention.”

Indeed conservation resources around the world focus much more on animals than on plants, despite the fact that plant-species loss is far greater than loss of animal life. Echinacea poses some special conservation concerns. Three of the genus’s nine—E. angustifolia, E. pallida, and E. purpurea—are commercially traded on world markets as the herbal medicine known as phytomedicine or the herbal dietary supplement echinacea. In the wholesale herb market E. angustifolia is traded as Kansas snakeroot. I discovered that the commercial supply of Kansas snakeroot, however, did not just involve E. angustifolia. Other species of echinacea were being thrown into mixed lots of the herb, including E. angustifolia, E. pallida, E. atrorubens, E. paradoxa, and E. simulata. To my mind the conservation problem in the 1980s was not that E. angustifolia was being harvested, but that other species with relatively narrow ranges—such as E. atrorubens, E. simulata, and E. paradoxa—were being harvested as E. angustifolia. This conscious or unconscious misidentification was at the root of real conservation concerns.

Current taxonomic concepts of the genus Echinacea by botanists include nine species and two varieties. Echinacea is a member of the Aster family (Asteraceae or Compositae). E. angustifolia grows from 6 to 20 inches tall. The long, narrow, lance-shaped leaves have stiff hairs. The purple ray flowers are relatively short—usually about ¾ inch to 1⅜ inches long. The species grows on dry prairies from Minnesota to Texas, to western Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa; the Dakotas; eastern Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana; and extreme southern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. E. angustifolia var. strigosa is somewhat smaller and more branched; it has strigose rather than tuberculate-hirsute or hispid hairs. It grows from north-central Texas through central Oklahoma.

Echinacea pallida is a larger plant than E. angustifolia, growing to 4 feet in height, with flower petals up to 4 inches long. In flower it is easily distinguished by its white pollen (all other echinaceas have yellow pollen). It is found on glades and rocky prairies from northeastern Texas, eastern Oklahoma, and Kansas; north to Iowa and Wisconsin; and east to Indiana.

Echinacea purpurea, the common purple coneflower, is the most familiar species, because it is commonly grown as a perennial in herb and flower gardens. It has been grown in Europe since 1699. Unlike most echinaceas, it has oval, toothed leaves (most echinaceas have untoothed, narrow, lance-shaped leaves). The tips of the spines on the flowers are bright orange. It is the only echinacea with a fibrous root; all others have taproots. It is the most widespread, though not the most common, species. It grows in open woods, prairies, and thickets from Louisiana, the northeastern tip of Texas, and eastern Oklahoma, north through Ohio, Michigan, and eastward. The entire world’s commercial supply of E. purpurea is commercially cultivated, not wildcrafted. This alone makes it the best echinacea species. There is no negative conservation impact associated with E. purpurea.

Echinacea atrorubens, a relatively rare endemic of the eastern edge of Oklahoma and Kansas, has been threatened in recent years due to collection of its roots as E. angustifolia. It grows up to 4 feet high; its stems are light green and nearly without hairs. The flowers have strongly curved petals. It grows on prairies in a very narrow range, from Houston, Texas; to Ardmore, Oklahoma; and north to the Topeka, Kansas, area. It is a species at risk from overharvest.

Echinacea paradoxa has yellow rather than purple ray flowers, hence the species name paradoxa. It grows to 4 feet high and also has light green, mostly smooth (without hairs) stems and leaves. It is found on bald knobs and rocky prairies in the Ozarks, in seventeen counties in Missouri and five in Arkansas. It has recently been found in two northeastern Oklahoma counties. Its root, too, has been harvested and sold as E. angustifolia. It is at risk from overharvest.

Echinacea sanguinea (sometimes called E. pallida var. sanguinea) is the southernmost species of echinacea, occurring in open sandy fields and open pine woods within southwestern Arkansas, southeastern Oklahoma, western Louisiana, and eastern Texas. The flower head is nearly hemispherical, and it has slender stems and narrow, dark red, rarely white, ray flowers. Little is known about the plant or its chemistry. Digging of the species has been observed. Its conservation status is not known.

Echinacea simulata was first described and named by Dr. McGregor in 1968. It is closely related to E. pallida but has yellow rather than white pollen. Once thought to be endemic to the Ozarks, it is now believed that the echinacea growing east of the Mississippi, once thought to be E. pallida, is really E. simulata. This was observed by Kathy McKeown, a biologist working on echinacea genetic diversity resources. In the summer of 1998 she traveled more than 20,000 miles in the United States observing echinacea in the wild—the most extensive fieldwork ever conducted on echinacea.

Finally, Echinacea tennesseensis and E. laevigata deserve a special note. E. tennesseensis, found in about a half-dozen populations in Tennessee, was believed to be extinct but rediscovered in 1968. It has upturned rather than drooping petals. On June 6,1979, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officially listed it as an endangered species. E. laevigata (smooth coneflower) is very similar to E. purpurea but has a taproot, is relatively smooth (without hairs), and has special flower features that distinguish it from E. purpurea. It is by far the rarest species of echinacea. Just over twenty populations are known in the wild with fewer than six thousand individual plants—only 2 percent as many plants known in the wild as the endangered E. tennesseensis. E. laevigata became a federally listed endangered species on November 9, 1992. It is an Appalachian species found in open woods in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia.

The founder of the world’s first ethnobotanical laboratory, Melvin R. Gilmore, noted the importance of echinacea to native groups of the Missouri River region. “This plant was universally used as an antidote for snake bite and other venomous bites and stings and poisonous conditions. Echinacea seems to have been used as a remedy for more ailments than any other plant.” In an 1887 article Eclectic physician John King introduced E. angustifolia to the medical profession. The first echinacea product was introduced into American pharmacy in 1895 by John Uri Lloyd, a Cincinnati pharmacist and cofounder of Lloyd Brothers Pharmacists, Inc. Within a few years, the Lloyds’ echinacea preparations became their best-selling products (out of more than three hundred) made from American plants, outselling the second-best seller by more than three to one. By 1895 echinacea was also used by homeopathic physicians in Germany. Over the next thirty years the demand increased, while shortages were prevalent in Europe. Consequently, in the late 1930s commercial cultivation of E. purpurea began in Germany, introducing echinacea products to a wide European audience for the first time.

The primary modern use of echinacea preparations is as nonspecific immunostimulants. Echinacea is used to enhance or stimulate the body’s own resistance against infections, especially in the prevention of colds and flu and to reduce severity and duration of symptoms. If taken at the onset of symptoms, in small, frequent doses—every two to three hours for the first two days—it often helps mobilize the body’s own resistance to the condition. Based on present knowledge, the immunostimulatory activity of alcoholic and water-soluble extracts depends upon the combined action of several constituents, rather than one plant constituent. The lipophilic alkylamides and caffeic acid derivative known as ascichoric acid contribute to the activity of alcoholic extracts. Polysaccharides, glycoproteins, and cichoric acid are active constituents in the expressed juice of E. purpurea as well as orally administered powdered whole herb.

Echinacea products include those from the aboveground parts and roots of E. angustifolia, E. pallida, and E. purpurea. These include (among other product forms) tablets, capsules, flextabs, and liquids such as tinctures, glycerites, extracts, and the expressed juice of the fresh flowering E. purpurea plant, on which most research has been done. A dose of 60 drops of E. purpurea root tincture three times a day is equivalent to 1 gram of the dried root three times a day. Rather than being used continuously (like vitamin C) to prevent colds, echinacea is used as needed at the onset of symptoms or in early stages of infection, usually for two weeks, followed by a resting period of one week. This is based on theory, rather than clinical studies. Many new products are calibrated to contain the equivalent of 900 to 1000 mg of the root (or herb) per daily dose.

Echinacea purpurea has been cultivated as a hardy, showy, perennial garden ornamental since the early 1700s, in both North America and Europe. It is easily grown from seeds, is drought tolerant, will grow in full sun or partial shade, and thrives on neglect. E. pallida is commonly planted in prairie restoration projects, meadow lawn plantings, and sometimes in herb gardens. E. angustifolia is the most difficult echinacea species to grow.

Commercial growers of Echinacea purpurea often direct-sow seeds to a depth of about ¼ inch, keeping the soil moist until emergence (generally in about two weeks). If the E. purpurea seeds are from a wild source (not cultivated material), a period of cold, moist stratification at 43 degrees for thirty days is recommended. Echinacea seeds are embryo dormant, and a period of cold, moist stratification greatly increases the speed and frequency of germination. Seeds can be placed in a mix of sand and peat, set outdoors (covered with a mesh screen to keep critters out), and left over the winter. For E. pallida seeds thirty to sixty days of stratification is sufficient. For E. angustifolia sixty to ninety days of cold, moist stratification is recommended. A study published in 1994 by researchers at South Dakota State University found that a two-week prechill treatment combined with ethephon and continuous light, followed by a two-week germination period in light (sixteen hours per day) at 77 degrees, could induce better than 95 percent seed germination in E. angustifolia, which is significantly higher than with any method previously known. Once established, echinaceas thrive with little care. If grown from seeds, expect flowers in the second or third year. When other plants succumb to droughty conditions, echinaceas will withstand the dry weather with little attention. They do well in any average, well-drained garden soil and prefer a slightly alkaline to neutral pH. Good drainage is essential. Echinaceas do not favor highly enriched, wet soils. Full sun is preferable, though E. purpurea does well under dappled shade. Yields of up to a ton of dried root and tops per acre can be expected.

The roots of echinacea species are ideally harvested when vegetative growth is dormant, preferably in the fall (when moisture content is generally lower than in the spring). In practice, however, wildcrafters usually harvest the roots during May through August, when the plants are in flower. Since the plants put up a purple flag denoting their location, it is easy to find the roots during this period. This practice contributes to conservation concerns, since flowering plants are not able to develop and set seeds. E. pallida and E. angustifolia have taproots, some traveling to a depth of more than 4 feet.

The root is dug with a sharp, narrow spade. Since the soils in which it grows in the wild are often hard and rocky, only 4 to 8 inches of the root and its crown are normally taken. It has been observed that as much as 30 percent of these broken roots will regrow from the broken taproot left in the ground (even when cut to depths of as much as 8 inches). Echinacea purpurea roots are often harvested in the fall of their second or third year of growth. Vegetative growth is harvested when the plant is in full bloom. The entire commercial supply of E. purpurea is cultivated.

UPS RECOMMENDATIONS

• Use only cultivated resources.

• Possible alternatives include marsh mallow, boneset, and astragalus. Spilanthes nicely replaces the herb’s antibacterial, antiviral, immunostimulating, and antifungal effects. Burdock is antibacterial for bacteria classified as gram-positive, and thyme has antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral properties; both of these herbs are also good alternatives.

The future of echinacea, from both a conservation and a cultivation perspective, is surprisingly bright. Finally, conservation groups and state legislatures have begun to pay attention to echinacea conservation concerns. Harvest is now protected in several states. In 1999 the state of Montana passed legislation (Senate Bill 178) placing legal restrictions on the harvest of E. angustifolia on public lands in the state. While the legislation is geared toward the echinacea harvest, it restricts the harvest of all medicinal plants. In the spring of 1999 the North Dakota legislature passed a bill (HB 1200) that makes digging echinacea (without written permission of the landowner) a Class A misdemeanor, subject to court restitution to the landowner or the state, with civil penalties of up to $10,000, along with forfeiture of any vehicle or other property used to take or transport echinacea. The bill was declared an emergency measure. This legislation responded to an emotional reaction to the taking of echinacea rather than sound scientific data on the actual impact of echinacea harvest in these two states. If states are willing to make it a crime to harvest a plant, they should also be willing to fund research on the plants’ basic biology. In addition to conservation legislation, E. angustifolia and E. pallida are now cultivated on a significant commercial scale. In the next five years increasing amounts of these two species will be supplied by cultivation rather than wildcrafting. Given the current attention paid to the use, cultivation, propagation, and conservation of echinacea, the future of the genus is positive. However, the persistent problem of harvest of rare or endemic species such as E. paradoxa, E. atrorubens, E. simulata, and E. sanguinea as E. angustifolia has not been addressed and puts these species at continued risk for the future.

Bauer R., and H. Wagner, “Echinacea species as potential immunostimulatory drugs.” In Economic and Medicinal Plant Research, Vol. 5, edited by H. Wagner and N. R. Farnsworth. New York: Academic Press, 1991.

Feghahati, S. M. J., and R. N. Reese. “Ethylene-, light-, and prechill-enhanced germination of Echinacea angustifolia seeds.” Journal of American Horticultural Science 119 (4): 853–58, (1994).

Foster, Steven. Echinacea Exalted! The Botany, Culture, History and Medicinal Uses of the Purple Coneflower. Drury, Mo: Ozark Beneficial Plant Project, New Life Farm, 1984.

______. Echinacea: Nature’s Immune Enhancer. Rochester, Vt.: Healing Arts Press, 1991.

______. Medicinal Herbs—An Illustrated Guide. Love-land, Colo.: Interweave Press, 1998.

Gilmore, M. “Uses of plants by Indians of the Missouri River region.” In 33rd Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. 1919. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. Reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977.

King, J.. “Echinacea angustifolia.” Eclectic Medical Journal 42 (1887): 209–10.

Lloyd, John Uri. A Treatise on Echinacea. Drug Treatise No. 30. Cincinnati: Lloyd Brothers, Pharmacists, 1924.

McGregor, R. L. “The taxonomy of the genus Echinacea (Compositae).” University of Kansas Science Bulletin 48 (1968): 113–42.