Superman’s got nothing on broad tinker’s weed. 

True, the plant grows more slowly than a speeding bullet; but, still, it seems to be more powerful than an eroding cliff and able to stop a moving lighthouse in its singular bounds! 

This herbaceous plant was in the news last week because it put a wrinkle in the plan to move the Gay Head Lighthouse away from the crumbling bluff.

Broad tinker’s weed is rare. In fact, it is considered endangered in Massachusetts and that is where it gets its power and its weakness. 

Its Achilles’ heel — or kryptonite — is its limited population. According to the Massachusetts Natural Heritage and Endangered Species website, there are only nine current records of this plant in the commonwealth. And this is also where it gets its power from: Broad tinker’s weed has been given special consideration surrounded by various protective requirements as a result of its endangered listing.

So why should we give a tinker’s damn for tinker’s weed? Something so unusual, of course, piques this plant lover’s interest. And, in fact, it is quite a wondrous weed.

Though infrequently found in these parts, this broad tinker’s weed has quite a following among botanists because of its beauty, uniqueness, edibility and health effects.

Consider the fabulous flowers: red-purplish tubular blooms that beckon many a long-tongued bumblebee, and leaves that fuse around its multiple hairy stems. After the flowers bloom, fall will bring orange fruit that resemble small cherry tomatoes. 

Foragers in states where this plant is more populous know that those fruits can be dried, roasted and ground as a coffee substitute. A distinguished botanist of Philadelphia a century and more ago wrote: “I learned that the dried and toasted berries of this plant were considered by some of the Germans of Lancaster County, as an excellent substitute for coffee, when prepared in the same way. Hence the name of wild coffee, by which he informed me it was sometimes known.”

But don’t get any ideas, Chilmark Coffee roasters — harvesting this plant here and now will get you in hot water!

As for its notable health effects, naturalist John Bartram observed in 1751, “it is used for the fever and ague; With us it was used with good success for the pleurisy, and in New England for a vomit. It is a powerful worker, a little churlish, yet may be a noble medicine in skillful hands.”

The many names of tinker’s weed allude to its aforementioned qualities and characteristics. In addition to wild coffee, it has been called feverwort. Horse gentian is another alias, thought to arise from the coarseness of the plant. Its scientific name, Triosteum perfoliatum, has its own derivation. Triosteum means three bones and refers to the three nutlets inside the fruit, while perfoliatum, or through the leaf, alludes to the stem and leaf configuration.

There was likely even a Tinker namesake. I found reference to a doctor with that surname in the stories about this plant, although tinker is a general name for someone that would travel around and fix metal housewares such as pots and pans. Over time, tinker has come to mean insignificant.

Truly this is not the case of our tinker’s weed in Aquinnah. And although many may not give a tinker’s cuss about a measly weed, I know that the real heroes in this story are those that can move a lighthouse and still protect this precious plant.

Suzan Bellincampi is director of the Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary in Edgartown, and author of Martha’s Vineyard: A Field Guide to Island Nature.