Lobelia

Lobelia, or Indian tobacco, is an annual or biennial herb of the family Campanulaceae, native to eastern North America from Nova Scotia and south-eastern Ontario south to Alabama and west to Kansas. It grows from fifteen centimetres to a metre tall on finely hairy stems, with toothed, oval leaves about eight centimetres long, and from midsummer into autumn it bears violet flowers tinged yellow inside, followed by small, brown, papery seed capsules. It has a long history as a medicinal plant, taken as an emetic, as an entheogen and as an aid to the skin and breathing. The Cherokee, Iroquois, Penobscot and other Indigenous peoples used it in medicine; its leaves were chewed and smoked, and the Cherokee burned the foliage to drive off gnats. Kynes records that the Iroquois took it against sickness caused by witchcraft and that the Creek used it to keep ghosts away, and she calls it a plant of two natures that can curse or cure. In magical practice it draws love, and Kynes keeps a sachet of the dried leaves by the bed to help dream work. Cunningham's weather charm is to throw powdered lobelia towards an approaching storm to halt it.