Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Notes: Eloise Butler introduced Indian Hemp to the Garden on April 24, 1913, with plants collected at Fort Snelling, near Minneapolis. She added plants from Brownie's Pond in Aug. 1915. ON July 3, 1917 she noted 'discovering' it in another section of the Garden. It's possible it was there all along or generated from the seeds of the plant she planted 4 years earlier. Additional plants were collected in 1919 from the Franklin St. Bridge area.

Indian Hemp is native to most counties in Minnesota except for a scattered few in south central and absent in the Arrowhead. This is one of the few plants that is native throughout the United States and all Canadian Provinces except the far north. Their are 4 species of Apocynum listed as native to Minnesota. A. cannabinum and A. androsaemifolium, Spreading Dogbane, are the most common. The other two have no current populations listed by the MN-DNR. These are A. sibiricum (which many sources list as a synonym for A. cannabinum) and A x floribundum, a hybrid known as Many-flowered Dogbane. At one time a number of varieties of the species were classified but those are not recognized today.

Toxicity: Plant material can be toxic if ingested without proper preparation. Plant chemicals are cardiac glycosides. They are also toxic to grazing animals.

Lore and Uses: Indian Hemp is one of those native plants with a lot of folk attribution for its medicinal values. When white settlers first arrived, they learned of this plant from the natives who boiled roots for a laxative tea (Blackfeet), dried the sap for a chewing gum (Kiowa) and other sundry uses from making sewing thread to a hair loss treatment! Once the white settlers got familiar, the plant became a remedy for dropsey and other things. Early, somewhat trained, local physicians found favor with the plant and employed it in general practice. Dr. John Lloyd (Ref. #22) recounted it’s history in his writings. This all led to its listing in the U. S. Pharmacopoeia from 1831 to 1916 and thereafter in the NF (National Formulary) until 1960 where it was regarded as a cardiac stimulant. As late as 1981, the plant was still used in Appalachia as a tonic for migraine, cold, pleurisy and constipation. Even so, the early users were aware that it was toxic in large doses. Roots were recommended to be gathered in the fall.

Chemical analysis reveals that the toxicity and major medicinal component comes from the constituents “cymarin” and “apocannoside" (apocynamarin). Both are cardiac glycosides, toxic normally, but in controlled doses have been shown to have anti tumor activity on human carcinomas (cancers). Constituents of the plant have specific effects on the heart as the chemicals in A. cannabinum are considered some of the most powerful cardiac stimulants of North American plants. Large doses can be a deadly and only an expert should attempt to use the material. Cymarin is also toxic to grazing animals but they find it distasteful and avoid it. Here then we have a plant with chemical makeup that actually does have effects on the human body - good and bad.

A practical use: It is well established that Native Americans used the woody fibers of Indian Hemp for everything from baskets to fishing lines to sewing thread, hence the common name of 'Indian Hemp', but until recently another use was almost forgotten. Every Plains Indian woman, young or old, had to have a corn husk bag, sometimes referred to as friendship bags or "wapanii sapk'ukt" (twined bag). Early surviving examples have provenance dating back to the 1830s. “Corn Husk” is a later term as the Indians who made them did not have easy access to corn in those early years as they did later when they actually used corn husks to weave the bag (and then yarn even later). It has been discovered by Joice Overton, an expert on the Ne-Me-Poo (Nez Perce) that while the style of making the bags has not changed, the materials have. The early material that was used was readily available to the plains and western Indians - Apocynum cannabinum - Indian hemp! Today, special ceremonial bags are still made with Indian hemp.

This is not a garden plant as it can be invasive with moist conditions as anyone observing local populations, including those at Eloise Butler, can attest. The flowers are attractive to bees and butterflies. The large root system does provide erosion control.

Harvest: Indian hemp is harvested in the fall when the stems are cut, split open and the long, silky fibers removed. After the winter, the fibers have disintegrated and are not useful. Cutting in the fall seems to stimulate better spring growth, Also, burning off the old stems also stimulated better growth. Burning causes newer growth to have straighter stems, taller, and with more fiber. It takes many plants to gather enough fiber to produce the cordage needed to make something like a Sierra feather skirt. Each foot of cordage requires about five stalks, and the skirt uses 100 feet of cordage. A 1933 study on the making of a deer net found that it required 7000 feet of cordage - which required 35,000 stalks.

Ref. #'s 7. 12, 14, 26, 30.