AMERICAN MEDICINAL PLANTS 



31 



GOLDEN GROUNDSEL 



Senecio aureus L. (Fig. 55.) 



Other common names. — Life root, golden ragwort, swamp squawweed, cough- 

 weed, grundy-swallow. 



Habitat and range. — Golden groundsel is found in swamps and meadows 

 from Newfoundland to Ontario, and Missouri, Florida, and Texas. 



Description. — This plant is a smooth herb with rather slender, solitary or 

 tufted stems one-half to 2}4 feet high. The basal leaves, which are 1 to 6 inches 

 long, are heart-shaped or kidney-shaped with long stems and often purplish 

 beneath. The lower stem leaves are lance-shaped and deeply cut and the upper- 

 most small and clasping. The flower heads, from two-thirds of an inch to about 

 1 inch broad, consisting of disk and deep yellow ray flowers, are borne several 

 in a flat-topped open cluster during the early summer. 



Part used. — The herb and the root. In limited demand only. 



Figure 55.— Golden groundsel (Senecio aureus) Figure 56.— Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) 



GOLDENSEAL 

 Hydrastis canadensis L. (Fig. 56.) 



Other common names. — Yellowroot, yellow puccoon, orange-root, yellow 

 Indian paint, turmeric root, Indian turmeric, Ohio curcuma, ground raspberry, 

 eyeroot, eyebalm, yelioweye, jaundice root, Indian dye. 



Habitat and range. — This native forest plant occurs in patches in high, open 

 woods, and usually on hillsides or bluffs affording natural drainage, from western 

 New England to Minnesota and western Ontario, and south to Georgia and 

 Missouri. Goldenseal is now becoming scarce throughout its range and is suc- 

 cessfully cultivated in many localities. 6 



Description. — Goldenseal has a thick, yellow rootstock which sends up an erect, 

 hairy stem about 1 foot in height which branches near the top, one branch bear- 

 ing a large leaf and another a smaller leaf and a flower. The leaves have from 

 five to nine lobes and when full grown are from 6 to 8 inches in diameter. The 

 greenish-white flower which appears in April or May is unattractive and peculiar 

 in form and is followed by a large, fleshy, berrylike head, which when it ripens 

 in autumn is bright red, resembling a large raspberry, and which contains from 10 

 to 20 small, shining, hard, black seeds. The rootstock when fresh is bright 

 yellow externally and internally with fibrous rootlets produced from the sides. 

 The latter when dry are very brittle and are frequently broken off when the root- 

 stocks are handled. 



Part used.— The rootstock, collected in autumn after the seed is ripe, and the 

 leaves, gathered in the late summer. In reasonably constant demand. 



6 Van Fleet, "W. goldenseal under cultivation. U. S. Dept. Agr. Farmers' Bui. 613, 15 p., illus. 

 1914. 



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