This is the Echinacea tea they sell for immune protection. It works.
Identification
Purple Coneflower is a hairy, broad-leaved weed growing straight from the root clump. The flowers look like large purple daisies, and the centre seed cone rises up as a brown bunch of tight spikes looking not unlike a small pine cone.
Harvesting
The flowers are cut for tea. The leaves are obsessively eaten by dogs.
Preparation
Chop the flowers to bits and draw as tea.
Uses
Quite effective immune support and apparently anti-viral cleanser. It seems to work on ailments commonly ascribed to viruses, but as usual with commercial virus theory, this is only a correlation. It was used when the first symptoms of shingles reappeared. The shingles have not reappeared. As with all other advice here, just personal, subjective observation, I am not trying to sell a shingles cure.
