Seneca Snakeroot

Seneca snakeroot is a perennial herb of the milkwort family, Polygalaceae, native to southern Canada and the central and eastern United States, where it grows on prairies, in woods and on wet shores and riverbanks, usually in thin, rocky, limy soil. A mature plant may send up dozens of stems, about half a metre tall at most, from a hard, woody rootstock; they carry narrow, lance-shaped leaves and end in a slender spike of small white or greenish flowers. The twisted root smells faintly of wintergreen. It is named after the Seneca people, who used the root for snakebite: around 1735 John Tennent, a Scottish physician in Pennsylvania, learned of it from them, tried it on pleurisy and pneumonia, and soon had it accepted in Europe. Other Native nations used it as well, the Cherokee as an expectorant and for colds and croup and the Cree chewing it for sore throats and toothache. It became a standard expectorant in the pharmacies and still goes into cough syrups, teas, lozenges and gargles, and about three quarters of the world's supply is dug from the wild in Manitoba. Cunningham, who files it as rattlesnake root, gives it powers of protection and money: an infusion added to the bath and to the water clothes are rinsed in guards against anyone trying to harm you, and rubbed on the hands or feet it is said to lead you to money.