Lobelia

European countries out lawed it many years ago, same for Canada and back in Dr. John R. Christopher days the USA didn't really like it...yet, Dr. Christopher devoted more pages to Lobelia than any other herb...Richard Shulse put out a casset years ago explaining Lobelia as one of the top herbs in the world.



Known mostly for breathing/lungs; but also according to Dr. Christopher, he believed the herb would help the human body where ever it needed help and often suggested putting little in formulas; believing it was a "thinking" herb.



Naturally, the herb once put into a formula is nothing more than dead plant minerals and all else falls back onto Indian/Native and religious beliefs to try to explain how a simple herb could influence human health in unexplainable ways....

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The plant is a common plant. Back 200 years ago one man paid $1,000.00 per pound for the seed and people walked the United States in search of it. This made the plant worth more than Ginseng and basically at that time and maybe even today, the most valuable plant on earth.



The problem is this plant doesn't grow very tall at all; if you don't mark the spot you planted it and watch it grow...odds are you will loose it as other plants grow all around it much taller.



The $1,000 a pound was for the seed. Taking into consideration the plant is small and near impossible to find in the wild....offering $1,000.00 a pound 200 years ago was not going to make anyone rich, even if they traveled hundreds of miles in search of the seeds.



I have grown it and use the entire plant, which is pretty common as far as herb use goes..I never had a source for the seeds in any bulk amount; until now. Thanks to the one who posted awhile back, they showed me where it could be purchased and the price is still basically the highest priced herbs on earth. I might pay as much or more for Virginia Snake rt. and classify both as rare.....Virgina Snake rt. because there is no market for it and Lobelia Seed because to obtain a pound is no easy thing....



I purchased a very small bag of seeds that fits in the palm of my hand for $188.00, it weighs a few ounces at best and they claim this handfull of seeds is OVER 2,000,000 seeds.....so can you imagine 200 years ago collecting these micro scopic seeds!!!!!!!!!!!!! maybe 10 million of them to collect your $1,000.00 reward....



200 years ago $1,000.00 = $_______________ in todays money?



Anyway, I plan on throwing x amount of these seeds to a given area, maybe mark the area some way and let Nature Take her course! They are anuals and the winds carry the seeds away in the wind and there lays the problem I always had....I could never find next years plants!



I MUST WONDER how someone in this world today is capability of selling these seeds? What would it take to grow and harvest millions of seeds so tiny they appear as POWDER...........



Naturally I and most humans on this earth today, have NEVER made or consumed the very old fashioned PURE LOBELIA SEED Tincture. I like very rare herbs, but they usually have some size to them, so even if they cost allot, you still can make enough to share with others....Lobelia Seed Tincture would be the rarity...you could spend a few thousand $$$ making a enough that you wouldn't mind sharring it around. To say the very least, I will not stop until I have 108 Herbal Sprays and I have to make Lobelia Seed Herbal Spray which would be affordable, but anyone wanting the pure tincture would be looking at one of the most expensive tinctures they have ever purchased.



I litterally could take ths $188.00 worth of seeds and throw them up in the air and they would simply dissapear, no way could you pick even one up...if the plants go to seed durring a windy day, they culd blow 1/2 accross the state and that is exactly what they do..I can barely imagine how many plants it took to suppy this small bag of seeds...



Most flowering plants wll flower over and over if you keep cutting the flowers off, some like Echinacea will flower clear up into snow if you never allow it to make seeds...so in that theory, the best method to harvest Lobelia would be to each day go out and clip the fresh flowers off and if you did this, it would take many/many/many hours to ever fill a 1 gallon jar. The plants are very small, the flowers extremely small and the seeds nearly impossible to see.



YET, if we listen to the old herbalist dating back in the days of no electric, no medical doctors, no drugs, the 2 herbs that were held high, was Lobelia seeds and cayenne....2 plants nearly impossible to obtain in North America 200 years ago.



A truely rich man could fill a 1 gallon jar with Lobelia Seeds and set it on his shelf as a supreme trophy that handled properly, may save his life someday.



Hopefully by Fall 2010 I can have all the plants I will ever need for the rest of my life. I raised it about 5 years ago and was in need of the fresh plants again. I was very glad that someone came along and pointed the direction to some seeds. I think in Canada the herbal seed company up there called Reicart or something like that sold the seeds in a package and when you got your package you would swear there were no seeds in it, just a touch of dirty powder, because that is all the seeds they would sell you.



I think life becomes more fun when you involve plants. Maybe this is why the Native Americans believed they possessed spiritual powers.



MH