Spanish needles

Painful menstruation accompanied by palpitation and general nervous agitation

Early cold or chest congestion where a warming diffusive stimulant is needed to open the surface and loosen phlegm

Overview. Bidens bipinnata, Spanish needles, is a common annual weed of the Asteraceae family found across warm temperate and subtropical waste ground, roadsides and disturbed soils in the Americas and beyond. The whole flowering herb and the barbed seed heads have been used in North American physiomedicalist and folk practice, generally prepared as an infusion or tincture. Cook and other physiomedicalist writers grouped it among the diffusive stimulant and relaxant remedies, valued particularly for painful and nervous menstrual complaints and for its supportive effect on the chest during colds.

Clinical Notes. In physiomedicalist practice Spanish needles was reached for when a patient presented with painful, scanty menstruation accompanied by palpitation, restlessness or general nervous irritability, the seeds being considered to soothe the nervous system while also encouraging a more open, outward circulation.

Properties and Uses. The seeds are a diffusive stimulant and relaxant, promoting expectoration, and securing a good outward flood of blood. They soothe and sustain the nervous system, and seem also to be of benefit in light cases of painful and deficient menstruation.

Description. Natural Order, Compositae. Genus BIDENS: Annual or perennial herbs, with opposite and various leaves; deriving their generic name from the fact that their flat fruit is crowned with two teeth or awns, which are barbed downwardly, and thereby made very troublesome when they get a hold upon one’s clothing.