Great Blue Lobelia

lobelia siphilitica, is found growing along the stream near our home.

from arhomeandgarden.org:

great blue lobelia is a 2-foot tall perennial herb belonging to the bluebell family that is found in moist woodlands in the eastern half of north america. the blue, tubular, five-parted flowers are produced at the top of the plant in a leafy spike
in midsummer.

medicinal uses: medicine and botany were once closely linked disciplines with most of the cures prescribed by doctors derived from the natural world. sometimes, these plant remedies worked, sometimes they didn't. the great blue lobelia was one that didn't work to cure syphilis, but it found a home in many gardens none the less.

waves of explorers to north america sought medicinal plants to cure diseases. the use of quinine bark to fight malaria, shown to jesuit priests in lima, peru in the 1630s by the native jungle tribes, was an early success story that set high expectations of effectiveness for native medicines.

syphilis is unique amongst the scourges of mankind in that it seems to be a new world disease that was transmitted to early european sailors after having sex with natives. for once the high degree of susceptibility was amongst the european population, not the native americans. the disease quickly spread throughout the world because the amorous nature of sailors.

most native tribes had herbal remedies to combat its effects. according to peter kalm, a student of linnaeus and swedish professor who visited north america between 1748 and 1752, the blue lobelia was used by the cherokees as a treatment for the disease. when linnaeus handed out latin names for plants described in his species plantarum that he completed in 1753, he chose to highlight the syphilis cure as the blue lobelia's defining feature.