A plant believed or used in folk medicine to treat fevers and ague, particularly referring to boneset or similar herbs.
Compound of 'ague' (fever) and 'weed' (plant), formed in Early Modern English when herbalists named plants by their medicinal uses. Folk botanists created hundreds of such compound names.
Native Americans and European settlers both used boneset for fevers, which is wild because they never met—people independently figured out that certain plants actually reduce fever symptoms.
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