Caution:  Bloodroot is poisonous.  Ingesting it can be fatal.

 

When I first fell in love with woodland flowers, I would spend hours poring over my Peterson's wildflower guide.  (I still do.)  One of the prettiest blooms in the book was a gorgeously simple white flower called bloodroot.  I hoped I'd one day be lucky enough to find this bloom in the wild.  That day came when, driving home from my job in Keyser, I spotted a sprinkling of white flowers on the bank of a hill between Westernport and Coney.  I pulled onto the shoulder, jumped over the watery ditch, and scrambled up the hill.  There they were:  dozens, perhaps hundreds, of what I knew to be that lovely white flower in my field guide. 

 

Just the other day, my good friend Lisa Sheirer, another wildflower enthusiast, told me she spotted a large stand of bloodroot on a recent walk along the Allegheny Highlands trail.  Her photos accompany this article.  If you are interested in seeing one (or many) of these little beauties, now is the time.  But hurry.  They are ephemeral; the flowers last only a couple of days.  The season is short, and before long only the leaves will remain.  Even those will disappear by the end of summer. 

 

Bloodroot usually grows in semi-shaded, light-wooded areas with moist, acidic soil between March and May (Foster and Duke).  It likes a hardwood canopy, and its native range "extends from Nova Scotia south to northern Florida, and west to Manitoba, western South Dakota, and eastern Texas" (Predney and Chamberlain).  The beautiful flower has white or pinkish-white waxy petals with bright yellow stamens.  It is in the Papaveraceae (poppy) family.  The flower opens in full sunlight and closes with overcast or dark skies.  At maturity, the plant can reach 12 inches; however, when it blooms it is approximately half that (Predney and Chamberlain). 

 

As Lisa observed, the plant looks as interesting when it comes up as when it blooms.  Each plant has one relatively large leaf wrapped around a reddish-orange stalk.  As the plant grows, the leaf slowly unfurls, forming a sort of tubular spiral around the stalk.  The unfurling leaf reveals a single bud, growing on a separate stalk. To me, when fully open the leaves look sort of like maple leaves with oak leaf lobes.  They are covered with white fuzz.

 

Bloodroot is so named because of its bloody red root--amazing how some of these plant names are so apt!  (On the other hand, a delightful, delicate little lavender bloom I once found is called "monkey flower," much to my dismay.)  The root, actually a rhizome (an underground stem that shoots out stalks and roots) is a "thick, tender, tuber which contains a red juice that stains the skin readily," according to altnature.com. 

 

The plant's scientific name, Sanguinaria canadensis, refers to its bloody quality as well.  Our adjective sanguine, from the Latin sanguineus, has definitions such as "blood-red," "blood thirsty," and "ruddy [reddish] complexion."  Another definition of sanguine comes from Hippocrates' medical model of the four humors that supposedly determined a person's health and personality.  A sanguine person was said to have blood "as the predominating bodily humor; also, having the bodily conformation and temperament held characteristic of such predominance and marked by sturdiness, high color, and cheerfulness" (www.merriam-webster.com).  From these historical roots (ha), the word today generally means "confident, optimistic."

 

Forgive my etymological digression, if you will, as the naming of plants and the etymology of words from which those names are derived are both fascinations this hobby holds for me.  The common names have interesting meanings as well.  "The names puccoon, paucon, pauson, red puccoon, coonroot, and Indian paint are all references to the Native American use of the plant to color skin, clothes, and baskets" (Predney and Chamberlain).  Tetter, meanwhile, is an Old English name for skin disease and refers to "tetterwort's" use in destroying warts and other skin growths.  (Wort is an Old English word meaning "plant.")  Sweet slumber refers to its opiate qualities that induce sleep, while snakebite cautions that the plant can, in fact, be fatal if ingested in large amounts (Predney and Chamberlain).

 

Canadensis, as one might guess, refers to the fact that the plant grows in Canada.  Carolus Linnaeus, the Swedish "Enlightenment genius" who classified the natural world and whose scientific names are now commonly used, sent his "acolytes" to various parts of the world, including Canada, to collect specimens (Pick).  The specimens returned from Canada were given this species name.

 

The plant is native to our continent.  Native Americans used it as a war paint, a dye, and for medicinal purposes.  It has even been used as a love charm.  Bachelors of the Ponca tribe would rub it on their palms, hoping to shake hands with their lady loves to entice them to marry (Foster and Duke). 

 

According to altnature.com,

 

Research is very promising for bloodroot constituents. One is sanguinarine; it is showing results as an anesthetic, antibacterial, anti-cholinesterase, anti-edemic, anti-gingivitic, anti-inflammatory, anti-neoplastic, antioxidant, anti-periodontic, anti-plaque, antiseptic, diuretic, emetic, expectorant, fungicide, gastrocontractant, hypertensive, pesticide, respiratory stimulant and more. Another important constituent is berberine (also found in goldenseal, Oregon grape and honeysuckle) which is showing promise in fighting brain tumors and many other cancers.

 

Sanguinarine is currently "used commercially as a plaque-inhibiting agent in toothpaste, mouthwashes, and rinses" (Foster and Duke).  However, some people who used a Colgate-Palmolive product containing sanguinarine called Viadent developed a precancerous disease of the mouth known as leukoplakia. Clinical studies concluded that "the development of oral  leukoplakia of the maxillary vestibule was significantly higher in Viadent® users than in nonusers, and sanguinarine was removed from the Viadent® product formula (Allen and others 2001, Eversole and others 2000, Mascarenhas and others 2001, Wagner 2001, qtd. in Predney and Chamberlain).

 

People who use bloodroot to remove warts and other skin growths report that it creates a skin reaction that is quite painful as it eats away at the growth.  One of my friends had a tattoo removed while living in Holland with an escharotic (corrosive) paste that ate the skin around the tatt over a period of months.  Her skin eventually healed, sans the tattoo.  I wonder now whether the paste contained bloodroot.  She said the treatment hurt.  Today, according to the famous Dr. Weil, "Conventional doctors have used [a paste] sometimes in combination with surgery, to successfully remove skin cancers. It is a mixture of bloodroot and zinc chloride and is known as ‘Mohs chemosurgery,' after Frederick Mohs, M.D., who invented the technique" (www.drweil.com). 

 

Tinctures can be made with fresh or dried roots.  However, ingesting this plant can be dangerous.   Altnature.com warns, "It contains toxic opium-like alkaloids and can cause mucous membrane irritation; an overdose can be fatal; do not use when pregnant or lactating. Bloodroot is not edible."  One of the authors of my Peterson's Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants and Herbs nibbled a bit of the root and experienced tunnel vision as a result.  Sanguinarine may, in fact, cause glaucoma (Foster and Duke).

 

Bloodroot provides a nutritious appendage (elaiosome) that is gathered by ants.

 

Ants collect bloodroot seeds and carry them back to their nest, where they consume the elaiosome and discard the intact and viable seeds in old galleries or refuse tunnels.  These refuse areas tend to be high in organic matter, phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen-ideal for germinating bloodroot seeds. This mutually beneficial relationship between the bloodroot plant and native ants is known as "myrmecochory" or ant farming. (Beavie and Culver, Hendershot, qtd. in Predney and Chamberlain)  

 

Although altnature.com advises that the plant is endangered and should not be harvested from the wild, in fact it is listed only as "exploitably vulnerable" in New York and of "special concern" in Connecticut by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  According to NatureServe Explorer (2002), "The global heritage status rank is G5 and the national heritage status rank is N5, indicating that bloodroot is currently secure within its range" (qtd. in Predney and Chamberlain).  The United Plant Savers organization lists bloodroot as "At-Risk":  "Often collected from the wild and marketed domestically and internationally, the plants on the ‘At-Risk' list have experienced pressure due to overcollection or habitat loss. This pressure, combined with the innate sensitivity and rarity of the plants listed, has led to the rapid decline of wild populations in their native ranges" (United Plant Savers, qtd. in Predney and Chamberlain).

 

Should you decide to buy bloodroot seeds or rhizomes, do so from an ethical vendor.  It is quite easy to cultivate and readily naturalizes. A commercial market exists for bloodroot, and I am seriously considering cultivating it, along with other plants, for profit.  Much more information exists on these possibilities as well as the other wonders of this pretty little plant.  For me, though, its biggest wonder is its delicate elegance in the often harsh conditions of early spring.

 

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Disclaimer:  The author provides this information for educational purposes only.  Eating or using wild plants for medicinal purposes can be dangerous or fatal and should not be undertaken without extensive research and the ability to correctly identify plants.  Also, it is important to know which plants are endangered and to leave them growing in the wild.  Never take the last specimen of a plant in an area--always leave four or more for reproduction. 

 

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References

 

Foster, Steven, and James A. Duke.  Peterson Field Guides:  Eastern/Central Medicinal Plants and Herbs, 2d ed. New York:  Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

 

Pick, Nancy.  "Linnaeus Canadensis."  The Walrus Nov. 2007.  On the Web at http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2007.11-pehr-kalm/. 

 

Predney, Mary L., and James L. Chamberlain.  "Bloodroot:  Sanguinaria canadensis:  An Annotated Bibliography."  On the Web at http://www.sfp.forprod.vt.edu/pubs/sfpdoc8.pdf.