MISCELLANEOUS USES 



several from the same root. This, I believe, was 

 the most famous of the Puccoons as an Indian color- 

 source, a good red dye being extractable from the 

 large red roots. The plant sometimes went among 

 the whites by the name of Alkanet, bestowed, doubt- 

 less, because of its cousinship with the plant yield- 

 ing the famous Old World dye so entitled. The 

 Borage family, indeed, are rather rich in color juices, 

 and some will stain the fingers even as one gathers 

 the flowers. A red dye was also gdt, according to 

 Porcher, from the fibrous roots of the Flowering 

 Dogwood and the kindred Silky Cornel (Cornus 

 sericea, L.) sometimes called Kinnikinnik. Of Kin- 

 nikinnik, more in a page or two. Another red may 

 be extracted from the roots of the Wild Madder 

 (Galium tinctorium, L.), a smooth-stemmed, peren- 

 nial Bedstraw, with square stems and rather upright 

 branches, narrow leaves in verticels usually of four, 

 and small, 4-parted, white flowers, found in damp 

 shade and in swampy land from Canada southward 

 throughout much of the eastern United States. 

 This was one of the dyes used by the northern 

 Indians to color red the porcupine quills, which en- 

 tered so largely into their decorations ; and French- 

 Canadian women, according to Kalm, employed it 

 under the name of tisavo jaune-rouge, to dye cloth. 



225 



