Cup Plant, Silphium perfoliatum, a medicinal plant of late summer. It has been used for lung hemorrhage, back and chest pain, paralysis, rheumatism and to prevent children from seeing ghosts. It was used by the Iroquois, Meskwaki, Ojibwa, Omaha, Ponca and Winnebago Indians.

Cup Plant Sources:

Audubon Guides Box Set – Birds, Tree, Wildflowers & Mammals. Computer Software.Green Mountain Digital. Version: 2.3. Web. Jul 10, 2014.

Felter, Harvey Wickes, M.D., and John Uri Lloyd, Phr. M., Ph. D. King’s American Dispensatory, Vol. 2. Cincinnati: The Ohio Valley Company, 1905. pg. 1755-1756

Foster, Steven and James A. Duke. The Peterson Field Guide Series; A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs of Eastern and Central North America. 2nd. ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. Print. pg. 148-150

Herrick, James William. Iroquois Medical Botany. Ph.D. Thesis, New York: State University of New York, Albany 1977. Print. pg. 236

Moerman Daniel E., Native American Ethnobotany, Portland: Timber Press. 1998. Print. pg. 531

Newcomb, Lawrence. Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1977. Print. pg. 392-393

United States Department of Agriculture. Natural Resources Conservation Services. Web.