What Is Boneset?

When I cleaned out a closet last week I found boxes that I had forgotten I had and in one of them I found this scrapbook (I think I can remember the elderly lady who gave it to me — probably in the 1970’s) and it’s a treasure.

For some time, each week the Georgia Market Bulletin printed a column about plants and titled them”What Is –.”  It was a most informative column and my older friend cut those articles out and pasted them in a scrapbook. (I wish I knew what kind of glue she used.  At one time there was a paste-like substance called “Musilage”, but sometimes people mixed flour and water together to use).  Right now the Boneset is in bloom and I thought it the right time to share one of the old columns.  The pictures you see were taken in our neighbor’s pasture and would you believe now he has sprayed this beauty with Round Up?  I’m just sick — but he said it had his fence shorted out and it was allowing the cows to just walk out.  Duh!

Boneset – Eupatorium perfoliatum, sometimes called Indian sage and feverwort, is a coarse, stout herb growing from three to six feet high.  It is rank-smelling with pointed leaves and dense flat-topped clusters of white flowers.  It has long been cultivated as a domestic remedy.

To one whose childhood was spent in the country some fifty years ago the name or sight of this plant brings unpleasant memories.  The attic or woodshed was hung with bunches of the dried herb, which served as a warning against wet feet, or over-exposure which might result in cold or malaria.  When one of these catastrophes happened, a certain nauseous concoction called “boneset” tea was poured down the throat — as a certain nemesis.

Although the Indians first discovered its virtues — naming the plant ague weed, it is possibly one of the few herbs whose efficacy has not been overrated.  Dr. Millspaugh says: “It is prominently adapted to cure a disease peculiar to the South, known as break-bone fever (Dengue), and it is without doubt from this property that the name boneset was derived.”  Dengue is an acute infectious disease characterized by sudden onset of headache, racking joint pains and rash — transmitted by mosquitoes.

So much for the Market Bulletin article.  As you move around the countryside this fall don’t miss seeing Boneset in open fields, pastures or even on the roadside  — it’s a stand out.  Fall wildflowers are beautiful and so different from the ones we see in the spring — don’t miss seeing them.  Enjoying wildflowers is one of the most enjoyable parts of country living.