Related to prairie coneflower of the Great Plains, this mountain plant was used by the Crow to help with aches and pains in muscles and joints. It was referred to as “Old People’s Medicine” and reports of people of a certain age today suggest that rubbing crushed leaves or the water from boiled roots on sore muscles and painful joints can have a relieving effect.
Drinking a tea of the dried root is said to have a diuretic effect as well as a mildly stimulating effect on the heart.
Botanically this plant is unusual in that as a plant in the Aster family, most of which have both disc flowers and ray flowers (the colored ones resembling petals around the central disc) it lacks the ray flowers retaining only an elongated central disc that is dark purple. These very attractive dark purple flower heads attract numerous pollinator insects and hummingbirds as well as small seed eating birds when the seed heads are ripe in the fall.
The Crows have a curious name for this plant. They call it “kalish iistaba”, “old lady’s belly button” … the reason is unclear.
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