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Pentanema squarrosum
Also called Cinnamon Root, Cloron's Hard, Fleawort, Great Fleabane, Horse Heal, Lady's Gloves
Ploughman's spikenard is a softly hairy, aromatic wildflower of calcareous grassland, usually biennial or short-lived perennial, grown mainly as a wild or naturalising herb rather than a garden plant. Its key feature is the spicy, cinnamon-like scent of its leaves and root, especially in spring.
Pentanema squarrosum (syn. Inula conyzae), ploughman's-spikenard, is a species of plant in the Asteraceae found in Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. It is an aromatic herb that grows in calcareous grassland and was in the past sometimes harvested as a substitute for true spikenard, or nard, Nardostachys jatamansi.
Ploughman's Spikenard is native to Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. It has also been introduced to Columbia and New Zealand.
The dried and powdered root makes a pungent type of incense, and this is probably why it was given the name ploughman's (cf. poor man's) spikenard, although the smell is not much like true spikenard. It is also said that the dried leaves can burned and used as an insecticide and parasiticide, especially against fleas.
Elecampane · Pentanema helenioides · Pentanema hirtum · Irish Fleabane · Pentanema spiraeifolium · Elecampane · Elecampane
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pentanema squarrosum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
