🌿 A healing herb 🌱 A garden weed

boneset

1 9.9

A North American plant that grows every year with clusters of white flowers used in traditional medicine

noun
/ˈboʊnˌsɛt/

: eufrasia

Many people still use boneset for its therapeutic properties, especially to combat fevers and colds.
boneset tea
boneset and yarrow
perfoliate boneset

Examples

In North American folk medicine, boneset has been prized for its ability to relieve chilly conditions.
Fall asters, boneset, marsh marigolds, jewelweed, and grand lobelia are blooming in the wildlife corridors we established along the small streams.

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Traditional herbalists would often brew boneset tea to help reduce the symptoms of fever.

Synonyms

Eupatorium perfoliatum

vsboneset

Specialized

9.9

A North American herb with groups of small white flowers that people use in folk medicine and call boneset

is the common name used for that exact same plant

thoroughwort

vsboneset

9.9

A perennial herb with white flowers used in traditional medicine

is the wider species name applying across North America rather than just southeast

agueweed

vsboneset

9.9

A wild plant of the southeastern United States with white, daisy-like flowers once used in folk medicine

is the broader North American species name rather than a local folk term

purple boneset

vsboneset

Specialized

9.9

A North American flowering herb with leaves in rings and small purple spotted flowers

is the white-flowered species rather than the purple-spotted relative

Compounds

climbing boneset

9.9

A tropical plant with vanilla-scented flowers that climbs trees

purple boneset

Specialized

9.9

A North American flowering herb with leaves in rings and small purple spotted flowers

Surface Forms

boneset singular

bonesets plural

Morphology

boneset = bone + set (semi-transparent) = bone + set

Although composed of the clear elements 'bone' + 'set', the specific referent 'an herb used medicinally' is not directly inferable and may be misread as 'a set of bones'.

Etymology

Boneset gets its name from how people used the plant: split into bone and set, it was thought to 'set' or help sore bones and to treat 'break-bone' fevers. So a helpful way to remember boneset is that it is a traditional herb used for fevers and bone pain.