Photo: Franco Folini from San Francisco, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)
Gumweed
Grindelia robusta
Also known as Gumplant, Rosinweed, Tarweed, Great Valley gumweed
Key benefits
✦Traditional uses
✦Long before it reached apothecary shelves, gumweed was gathered by California tribes and other Native peoples of the West, who prized its sticky, resin-laden buds for troubled lungs and irritated skin. Nineteenth century Eclectic physicians took note of these traditions and folded gumweed into their own materia medica, reaching for it during bouts of bronchitis, whooping cough, and asthma. It became just as well known as a wash for the itch and blister of poison oak and poison ivy, its resins believed to form a soothing film over irritated skin. The plant earned its common name honestly, since every bud arrives coated in a thick, gummy resin that clings to the fingers of anyone who picks it.
How to grow & use it
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“For the tight chest and the stubborn cough that lingers after everything else has passed.”
Grazing animals mostly avoid gumweed because of its bitter, sticky resin, but early ranchers noticed it thriving on overgrazed land where little else would grow, a hardy pioneer of worn-out pastures.
Gumweed is resinous and best used in small, occasional amounts, since excess can upset the stomach, and traditional sources caution against large doses with heart or kidney conditions. As a daisy-family plant it may trigger reactions in those sensitive to ragweed or chrysanthemums, and it's best avoided during pregnancy and nursing.