Curly-cup gumweed
Grindelia squarrosa
Also called Gumweed, Rosinweed
We do not have a Blackfoot or Cree name for this one yet. Tell us the name and we will add it, with your word on where it comes from.
A sticky yellow prairie daisy whose flower buds are wrapped in curled bracts and coated in white gum. Used on skin and for coughs.
Speak with someone who knows this plant before you harvest it.
Take care
- Gumweed takes up selenium from prairie soils, so it is not something to be taken internally in quantity.
- Very common on roadsides, which is exactly where not to pick it.
How to know it
- Buds
- The green base of each flower head is wrapped in bracts that curl sharply back, and the whole thing is covered in sticky white resin. Nothing else on this prairie is gummy like that.
- Flowers
- Yellow, daisy-like, at the ends of branches.
- Leaves
- Stiff, toothed, clasping the stem, resin-dotted.
- Where
- Dry disturbed ground, roadsides, overgrazed pasture. Very common.
The country it grows in
- Open prairie
- Roadsides and disturbed ground
- Coulee slopes
- Sandy and gravelly ground
Landscape types only. We do not publish where a patch is, and we are not going to.
When it is ready
- Flowers July to SeptemberThe gummy buds and just-open heads are what is wanted.
- Leaves July to September
Right now it is July. Something on this plant is in season.
What it is used for
- Skin and wounds
- Breathing and colds
A well-documented remedy for poison ivy rash and other skin irritation, applied to the skin.
Also used for coughs and bronchial trouble.
How it is prepared
- Wash
Gummy heads steeped in hot water, cooled, and dabbed on irritated skin.
- Poultice
Bruised heads laid on a rash.
Protocol
Ask the plant first, and offer something before you take anything. Tobacco is what is most often offered here. Say who you are, and say what the medicine is for.
Harvest the mature plants and leave the small ones to grow. Never take the first plant you find, and never take all of them.
Take only what you will actually use. Medicine picked and then left to rot in a bag was taken for nothing.
Leave the ground as you found it. Put back any dirt you dug up, and return any plant material you do not use to the earth.
Do not gather beside roads, highways or trails, where the plants take up whatever has been sprayed or spilled there.
If you are not certain what a plant is, do not pick it and do not put it in your mouth. Ask someone. Being wrong in the field is how people get hurt.