NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 
ings. The compound leafage of the Blue Cohosh breaks the 
ground in April with the immature flowers; after a while 
the leaf spreads out and the lurid blossoms expand. The 
berries are set upon short thick fleshy foot-stalks, and the 
round hard fruit forms a loose panicle of drupe-like naked 
seeds of horny texture. 
The plant may be found in open woods and grassy plain- 
lands, known by its large bluish green leafage and the dark 
blue berries. * 
B.Loop-Root.—Sanguinaria Canadensis (L.). 
(PLATE IV.) 
‘* Here the quick-footed wolf, 
Pausing to lap thy waters, crushed the flower 
Of Sanguinaria, from whose brittle stem 
The red drops fell like blood.” 
Just at the margin of the forest, and in newly-cleared 
ground among the rich black leaf mould, may be seen late 
in April and May the closely-folded vine-shaped leaf of the 
Blood-root, enclosing in its fold one pure white bud. 
The leaf is strongly veined beneath with pale orange 
veins. The simple semi-transparent round leaf stalk, as well 
as the flower scape, is filled with a liquor of a bright orange 
red color: break the thick fleshy tuberous root and a red 
fluid drops from every wounded pore, whence its local 
name “ Blood-root.” t 
This juice is used largely by the Indian women in their 
* The roots of this plant are in use with the Indian women, its common name being 
‘*Papoose Root.” Its virtues are of a singular and powerful nature, known only to the 
native Indian. 
+The Indians have an old legend of the transformation of the Wood Thrush into the 
form of the Blood-root, which poetical fancy has been sweetly versified by a lady in 
Toronto, who favored me with a copy of the poem. 
It 
