Thimbleweed

Scanty, poorly toned urination with a sense of renal sluggishness rather than acute irritation

Chronic kidney weakness where the physiomedical aim is to restore tone rather than simply force diuresis

Overview. Rudbeckia laciniata is a tall, branching perennial of the daisy family, native to moist thickets and streambanks across much of eastern and central North America. The leaves and flowering tops, and in Cherokee foodways the young spring shoots (known as sochan), have a mild bitter, faintly balsamic character. In nineteenth century physiomedical and Eclectic practice the plant was valued chiefly as a gentle kidney remedy, used to restore tone to a sluggish urinary system rather than to force output through irritation.

Clinical Notes. Physiomedical writers placed Rudbeckia laciniata among the tonic diuretics: agents thought to work by improving the intrinsic tone of the kidney tissue rather than by stimulating or forcing secretion, which they associated with harsher diuretics that could exhaust the organ over time.

Properties and Uses. The leaves and flowers are of a pleasant bitterish and somewhat balsamic odor, moderately diffusive, and leaving a tonic impression. Their chief action is upon the kidneys, effectually increasing the flow of urine without exhausting these organs; but rather distinctly improving their tone, and relieving inefficiency and torpor.

Description. Natural Order, Compositae. Genus RUDBECKIA: Perennial herbs with alternate leaves. Flower-heads large and showy, terminal to the branches; rays yellow, long and drooping, resembling a sunflower, neutral; scales of the involucre in two rows, leaf-like; receptacle long-conical, with short and soft chaff; achenia four-angled, smooth, with a minute crown-like border. R. LACINIATA: Stem smooth, branching, three to seven feet high. Leaves roughish, lower ones of five to seven-cut leaflets, upper ones irregularly three to five-parted. Heads long-peduncled; rays one to two inches long, strongly drooping; disk columnar in fruit, dull greenish-yellow. Common in low thickets, blooming from July to September. (Gray.)