Curlycup Gumweed

General Information

• Plants: Biennial or perennial herbs with glands (especially on the leaves and flower bracts) that exude aromatic resin. Stems 4 to 40 inches tall. Leaves simple, often tapering toward the base, with teeth on the margin.
• Flowers: In heads with numerous small, yellow ray-flowers around the yellow disks. Heads surrounded by sticky, aromatic, green, leafy bracts that curl back and downward.
• Fruits: Single-seeded achenes with pappus of two to eight stiff awns as long as the disk flowers.
• Flowering Season: July to October.
• Habitat/Range: Dry, open, disturbed places in the plains and mountains from British Columbia to Minnesota and south to California and Texas.¹

Blackfeet Ethnobotany^*

by Darnell and Smokey Rides At The Door

The Blackfeet name for gumweed is Ak Spii. The translation means 'sticky head,' which comes from the sticky sap excreted by the flower's bracts. The traditional medicinal uses treat colds, influenza, lung congestion, bronchitis, asthma, and headaches and as a sleep aid. Much of the medicinal uses are taken as tea, or from chewing the dried leaves.²

From the Journals

by H. Wayne Phillips

Lewis wrote a succinct description of gumweed on his transmittal list of plant specimens and other items that were sent down the Missouri River from Fort Mandan to St. Louis in the spring of 1805.³ Lewis’s description of this plant demonstrates his skill as a botanist:

No. 40.— Taken at our camp at the Maha [Omaha Indian] vilage August 17th 1804. it is a handsome plant about 3 feet high much branched bears a yellow circular flower carnished with meany small narrow ovate petals of the same colour, the leaf about an inch and a quarter in length thick smot indent finely, incompassing the stalk about 2/3 ‘s and of a tongue-like form; annual plant is covered with a gumlike substance which adheres to the fingers and yealds a pleasant smell.

This specimen, collected near present-day Homer, Nebraska, still exists. There are three sheets of curly-cup gumweed that were collected on the L&C Expedition and still exist in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, all in good shape, including one with Lewis’s original label.⁴

Additional Information: Today, gumweed is still known for its medicinal properties to aid particularly with certain ailments of the throat. Interestingly enough, curlycup gumweed favors dry conditions and typically grows better in drier soil opposed to moist soil.⁵

^*While traditional medicine is still practiced in many cultures including the Blackfeet culture and has many uses, please do not consume any plant material without consultation of a health professional.