My grandmother grew up in Americus, GA, a rural town over 100 miles south of Atlanta. Her parents were of Cherokee descent, so I asked her about any herbal remedies passed down to her. She told me of several, but the one that she remembered with the most clarity was rabbit tobacco.
Rabbit tobacco is also known as lasting, everlasting, sweet balsam, white balsam, feather-weed, and sweet cudweed. Its scientific name is Gaphalium obtusifolium. These annual herbs reach a height of 1 to 3 feet and have erect stems with brown, shriveled leaves persisting into winter and stems covered with felt-like hairs in summer. The leaves are 1 to 3 inches long, and alternate. The flowers, minute in whitish heads, appear in late summer to fall. Fields, pastures, and disturbed areas are the sites of this common native plant of the eastern United States. The Cherokee named it rabbit tobacco because they believe it was the rabbit who took attended the plant.
In Cherokee medicine, it is believed......
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