Before DEET: How pioneers dealt with biting insects. Part 3. Ragweed.
Giant Ragweed Source: Chris Light, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Yes, ragweed. I don’t know which one is worse… cedar fever during cedar pollen season in late winter, or hay fever from ragweed in the fall. There’s a whole family of ragweed species with the family name of Ambrosia. Fun fact: “food of the gods” is due to the wind pollination quality. Giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida) grows just about anywhere that’s disturbed and neglected… in ditches, fence rows, on the side of the road. A distant relative of sunflowers, it can reach heights from 3′ to 16′ tall in a single season.
Ragweed was another staple in my grandparents’ medicine cabinet. Along with Beautyberry, ragweed was one of the leaves stuffed under the yoke on the mules or oxen to keep the bugs off while they worked. Like lantana, it also can be rolled into a ball and crushed to relieve insect stings and bites. I must have been a sight coming in the house covered in leaf smeared bug bites as a child.
The cool stuff.
Caches containing extraordinary large seeds have been found in burial mounds across the Eastern Woodlands cultural area of Native Americans. Besides being an oily seed crop, the young leaves have a good, herbal flavor after blanching in boiling water for a few minutes. The flowers have a unique herbal nutty flavor after blanching and are good with scrambled eggs. Blanch the male flowers for a minute and dehydrate to deploy as a flavorful ingredient in seed crackers. Historical records from Cherokee, Lakota, and Iroquois record it as a remedy for insect stings, bites, hives, fever, pneumonia and diarrhea.
From hated foe to forgotten friend….
Ragweed continues to be following a step behind. Anywhere we disturb the landscape, ragweed finds a home. A former domesticated partner, well loved and tended, now a common weed that still finds a way to live in our shadow. Who knows what the future may bring for an old companion. Biomass carbon capture or building materials from the strong sturdy fibers. One thing is for certain, it’ll always find a way to survive as a flower along the way.
