MISCELLANEOUS USES 



other mine of color is Shrub-yellow-root (Xanthor- 

 rhisa apiifolia, L.Her.), a low, shrubby plant of the 

 Buttercup family, with pinnate leaves clustered at 

 the top of a short stem, and small, brownish-yellow 

 flowers in drooping, slender racemes appearing in 

 April or May, in woods and on shady banks of 

 mountain streams from New York to Florida. The 

 bark ^nd roots are richly yellow, and from the latter 

 the dye was customarily extracted. The bark and 

 roots, too, of some of the Barberries (notably the 

 western Berberis Fremontii, Torr.) yield a yellow 

 dye, of which the Navajos used to be fond as a color 

 for their buckskins. Equally in aboriginal favor 

 as a source of yellow was the nearly related Golden 

 Seal (Hydrastis Canadensis, L.), the thick, orange- 

 colored rootstock being used. It occurs in rich 

 woods from the Canadian border to Arkansas and" 

 Georgia — a low herb, with a hairy stem two-leaved 

 near the summit which bears a single, greenish-white 

 flower. It is sometimes called Yellow Puccoon.^ 



Puccoon is a word of Indian origin, and has been 

 applied to other plants as well. One of these, the 

 Bed Puccoon, is more commonly known as Blood- 

 root (Sanguinaria Canadensis, L.), whose hand- 



The root is also the source of the official drug Golden seal, 

 and its collection on this account has caused the plant to become 

 exterminated in many localities where it Was once common. 



223 



