Eden Apothecary · Herb Profile
Lobelia inflata
Also known as Indian Tobacco, Pukeweed
Pronounced Lobelia: loh-BEE-lee-ah. Lobelia inflata: loh-BEE-lee-ah in-FLAY-tah.
Warm, dry, and dispersing: an acrid, pungent stimulant-relaxant that opens the airways, breaks bronchial and muscular spasm, and moves stuck phlegm, becoming emetic at the ceiling dose.
Avoid. The AHPA Botanical Safety Handbook (2nd ed., 2013) assigns Lobelia inflata safety class 2b (not verified against AHPA): not to be used during pregnancy. Its principal alkaloid, lobeline, is a nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonist, and the herb is emetic and alters respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure, so it is avoided in pregnancy. Sources: AHPA Botanical Safety Handbook, 2nd ed. (Gardner and McGuffin, 2013), Lobelia inflata (class 2b (not verified against AHPA)); Memorial Sloan Kettering About Herbs, Lobelia.
Avoid. AHPA advises against use during lactation, and lobeline is a nicotinic alkaloid that may pass into breast milk; no lactation safety data exist, so avoidance is precautionary. Sources: AHPA Botanical Safety Handbook, 2nd ed. (2013); NIH LactMed lists no entry for Lobelia.
Avoid in infants and young children. Lobelia has a low therapeutic margin, is emetic, and its nicotinic alkaloids make children particularly vulnerable to nausea, vomiting, and respiratory and cardiovascular effects. Although 19th-century Physiomedical practice used it in pediatric croup, modern references advise against pediatric self-use; reserve for qualified professional supervision in older children only. Sources: AHPA Botanical Safety Handbook, 2nd ed. (2013); Memorial Sloan Kettering About Herbs, Lobelia.
Low therapeutic margin: a genuine low-dose, practitioner-dosed herb, not for casual self-dosing. Nausea, salivation, and vomiting mark the ceiling of tolerance, and overdose brings sweating, tremor, dizziness, a racing then failing pulse, falling blood pressure, breathing difficulty, and, at extreme dose, seizures, respiratory depression, and collapse. The seed is the strongest part. Some references report gastrointestinal toxicity from as little as roughly 50 mg of dried herb, 1 mL of tincture, or 8 mg of pure lobeline in sensitive individuals, so begin at the low end and titrate. Not for self-treatment of acute severe asthma.
Avoid in pregnancy and lactation and in infants and young children (see safety fields). Avoid with nicotine and nicotine-replacement products and in tobacco users because of additive nicotinic toxicity. Use caution in heart disease, hypertension, cardiac arrhythmia, and in the frail, debilitated, or depleted, in whom a violent emetic further depletes. Do not use to self-manage an acute asthma attack. Do not stack with other central nervous system or respiratory depressants at higher doses.
Lobelia inflata is a common annual to biennial wildflower of eastern North American fields, clearings, and roadsides, and is cultivated for the trade; it is not at risk and is not on the United Plant Savers list. The main stewardship concerns are correct botanical identification and honest low-dose labeling, given the herb's narrow margin, rather than wild-population pressure.
Not found in the canonical biblical texts nor in the classical Mediterranean materia medica of Dioscorides or Pliny. Lobelia inflata is native to eastern North America; it entered Western practice through Native American use (documented among northeastern peoples) and above all through Samuel Thomson and the Thomsonian and Physiomedical movements of the early 1800s, in which it was the cardinal remedy.
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