Elephant's Foot. Elephantopus scaber
https://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Elephantopus+scaber
Edible Uses
Young leaves - cooked and eaten like spinach
A powder made from the plant is added to 'marcha', a fermentation cake used in the preparation of local alcoholic drinks.
Medicinal
The plant is widely used as a medicinal herb in the tropics. It is anthelmintic, diaphoretic, diuretic, emmenagogue, emollient, febrifuge and tonic[310. It is used to treat conditions such as asthma, coughs and pulmonary diseases; dyspepsia, diarrhoea and dysentery; oedema; urethral discharges and venereal diseasesA decoction is used to treat fungal skin diseases
The roots are diuretic, febrifuge and tonic
They are used fresh to arrest vomiting
Either pounded or in decoction, they are also used as a remedy for leucorrhoea, anaemia, cough, malaria and as a tonic during parturit
The leaves are recommended for application to the abdomen to treat dropsy[
They are also used as an anthelmintic and aphrodisiac, and to treat cough, sprue and diarrhoea
The plant contains deoxyelephantopine, an antitumoral sesquiterpene lactone[
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