THE CONEFLOWER

(Drawn by Ruaidhi Bashford,

NBG student)

Running your thumb over the top of the flower you will find its name Echinacea. Look closely at it. You will see why. Right in the centre is a bed of spiny quills, like a porcupine, a hedgehog or a sea urchin. The greek word Echinos means spine. But run your thumb again, over the top of the dry flower and you will learn the plant's ingenious mechanism of seed dispersal for survival in a dry prairie province. You are nailed to carry seeds to another destination. Free transport on fur that is a cunning case of a curious plant named for a sea urchin. But that, reader, is only part of the story about Echinaeeae.

What follows is truly one of the most remarkable botanical stories of the Americas because plants, unlike people, do not see boundaries. The story is Canadian as well as being American and suitably astonished we should all be by it, because it holds all of the elements of a thriller if not a Divine Plan.

In the great central plain of America, stretching from southwestern Saskatchewan, Southern Alberta and British Columbia along the Californian coastline into Mexico and eastward through the Dakotas, Nebraska and into Texas are the eight or so species of Western Rattlesnakes. These rattlesnakes are the eastem counterpart of the Timber rattlesnake but, they are much more excitable and therefore more aggressive. They can live almost anywhere from the old burrows of prairie dog towns, on mountainous rocky outcrops right to the seaside.

The snake is greenish or brownish above with well-defined brown blotches and packs a size up to 64in. (1.7m). This rattlesnake has a particularly nasty bite. It produces a venom which is rapidly lethal. The grisly details are such: the venom is a neurotoxin called Crotoxin; it is a polypetide protein of two modest components, one acidic and the other, basic. These two subunits show synergism in action. In other words they both have to be shot into the victim together to kill. They immediately go into the blood after the snake had bitten and cause haemorrhage and sensory and motor depression followed by collapse, shock and death.

But in the wings lurks the Helianthus Tribe with its three sisters Echinacea angustifolia, E. pailida and E. purpurea ready for the rescue. All. of these plants hold the antidote to the venom of the Western rattlesnake. They live side by side, snake and flower, and have done so for millennia.

This is where the Echinacea sisters do something really astounding, they have in their mesophyll cupboards a chemical emergency kit for rapid action. It is a glycoside-caked echinacoside. This glycoside is super water-soluble because it has a caffeic acid entity attached to it. This makes this medicine enter the blood stream with the speed of a bullet. And, yes, the caffeic acid is the same old cup of coffee, more or less, that you have in the morning.

The three sisters, like the three witches of Macbeth, have an exotic cauldron on the bubble. In it, together with echinacoside, are inulin, sucrose and betane, two isomers of 2 - methyltetradecadiens, echinacin (neotherculin, sanshool), and various resins and fatty acids. This nuclear arsenal fires up the immune system, opens up the peripheral blood vessels, climbs into the venom pit and wages war until the venom is detoxified, gangrene is held at bay and health is restored. The poor victim smiles and lives for another day.

Echinacea or coneflower root extract has now been internationally recognized as an immune booster. It is the 'Rave' medicine of Europe with an extraordinary grass roots following in the tens of millions. It is being used by school children in large overcrowded schools and menopausal men and women for much sought after immune boosting in these times of disease and stress. Echinacea is also thouot to have antiviral and antibiotic action as an added bonus. Not a bad track record for a humble prairie bloom whose only flaw is to have chosen long ago to live next door to a 'Hissing Sid'.

Organic Care

Echinacea purpurea is easily grown, as are E. angustifolia and E. pallida. These species were classified as Brauneria species in the past. E. purpurea is the only species which has garden cultivars.

The Echinacea species like a fertile sandy soil which is well drained in both summer and winter. Standing water in winter will cause crown rot of the plant growing region. This will kill the plant. The soil pH can be a little on the acid side or neutral.

A soil which is high in potassium and potash will produce the greatest number of flowers. A soil amended with steamed bonemeal or colloidal phosphate will supply the available phosphates. Dry woodash will supply the available potassium. This plant should not be overloaded with nitrogen. Excess nitrogen will produce a high leaf surface and less flower. All three species are remarkably drought tolerant but will perform better in the garden if they get additional moisture during drought conditions. At the very least they should be planted where they get full Morning sun on the leaves. This will seriously reduce the chances of Downy Mildew. However, if any of the Echinacea species are being grown as a medicinal herb, they should not be overly watered as this will reduce the potency of their various chemical complexes. Being truly xerophytic plants, they have all of the adaptive characteristics to withstand long periods of prolonged intense sunshine married to minimal moisture. They achieve this by having a rough hairy surface on the leaves , which reduces evaporation and they have the further ability artificially to place the leaves at 'wilt point'. In this state the plant goes into semi dormancy. These factors combined with their thick, tough tap root systern makes the plant careless of the vagaries of summer and the idol of the lazy gardener.

The three Echinacea species are a little late to show their face in the flower border. For that reason they should be well marked. The white and pink cultivars of E. purpurea are extremely late to grow in the spring showing tips only in mid-June.

Propagation

Give any of the Echinacea a head start of three years and you will have a garden gently dotted with seedlings. This is one good way to propagate this plant. Spring root cuttings are also a fine means of propagation as is the collection of seeds.

This is done for all the species and cultivars in the following manner. The seed heads are not disturbed on the plant until late October or early November. The seed heads are harvested on a dry day. They are placed on newspaper in an airy warm room for two weeks. The seeds are removed by thumb action. They are saved in paper envelopes and stored both dry and warm until spring. They can be planted indoors or outdoors from February to June. The seedlings are transplanted easily and will flower in their second year. The alba cultivars come true to seed if kept separated from the other species.

Design

All of the Echinacea species bloom for a very long time in the garden and as such are ideal flowers. Generally they bloom from the end of July into September. The E. purpurea 'Alba' cultivars bloom later beginning in August and. will show flowers beyond the last killing frost into November. So if a choice is made to grow E. purpurea 'Alba', a blooming time of four months can be achieved in virtually any garden.

The flowers of E. purpurea are very beautiful. They have a daisy-like form. Some of the flowers are very large being over 6in. (15cm) in diameter. The colours range from rosy pink in E. p. 'Bright Star' to deeper purple with E. p. 'Robert Bloom'. The plants are over 3ft. (1m) tall and branch gracefully ending with the solitary daisies.

E.p. 'White Lustre' and E. p. 'White Swan' are smaller plants being 24in. to 30in. (60cm - 70cm) tall with startlingly white flowers of large proportions.

A little judicious selection of volunteer species in one's own garden will bring satisfying results. A range of deeper coloured flowers to wonderful reflexed petals can be created. One may even try what I have done which is back-crossing. That is, taking an E. p. 'Alba' as the mother plant and crossing it with a wild deep coloured E. purpurea yielding a plant with an increased height of 4ft. (1.2m) and an extremely large, shell pink flower which blooms from July into October. Of course the story doesn't end here. I will have to move my Cinderella this coming year and it makes me very nervous that I might lose this creation. I am mustering my courage. It will take lots of black tea and planning. Maybe even some plotting! Who knows.

Diana Beresford-Kroeger

By kind permission of the Irish Garden Plant Society