Rattlesnake Weed

Hieracium venosum
[hi-er-uh-KEE-um   ven-OH-sum]

 

  

Family: Compositae 

Names: Hawkweed, rattle, robin’s plantain, bloodwort, snake plantain 

Description:. The species venosum is common in the Northern and Eastern States, and through Canada; selecting dry hill sides with a light soil, and also pine woods. Stem one to two feet high, rising almost naked above, or with but one or two glaucous leaves, smooth, dark-brown, and forking above into a loose and spreading corymb. Root-leaves obovate or oblong, scarcely petioled, nearly entire, thin and pale, smooth and purplish underneath, veins distinctly purple, and the midrib sometimes hairy. Heads small, each with about twenty flowers, with the involucre cylindrical and scarcely imbricated; peduncles very slender. May to July. 

Cultivation: The plant prefers light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils. The plant prefers acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It can grow in semi-shade (light woodland) or no shade. It requires moist soil.  

Properties: tonic, mucilaginous and astringent 

Medicinal Uses: When fresh, the leaves are acrid and excoriating, and will often remove warts; but they lose this property on being dried, and are then (with the roots) simply bitter and astringent.  The roots and leaves are stimulating and astringent, moderately permanent, and quite positive in action. They arouse a full outward circulation; and may be used to advantage when the surface is cold and sluggish, and there is hemorrhage from any internal organ. They are useful in uterine hemorrhage, excessive menstruation, bleeding piles, and spitting of blood. They are not so drying as often to prove constipating, but act much like (though milder than) the bark of myrica. Like myrica, they may be used in chronic diarrhea, aphthous sores, nasal catarrh, nasal polypus, and as an injection in foul leucorrhea and rather insensitive forms of prolapsus. It exerts that peculiar influence in stimulating and consolidating the assimilative apparatus, that can be used to good effect in the treatment of those forms of scrofula which are associated with persistent watery looseness of the bowels. Drank freely in warm decoction, and the leaves at the same time applied as a fomentation, the plant is reputed to be of much service in arousing the circulation and nervous system, and casting out the virus of serpents. One ounce of the roots, or an ounce and a half of the leaves, will form a quart of infusion; or they may be added to relaxant alterants in the preparation of syrups. The purple veined-leaves of rattlesnake weed are unmistakable. 

References:
Plants for a Future Database