Subject: Bear Root-what is this plant?

From: [email-masked] (DougBack)
Date: 24 Jan 1996 22:30:37 -0500

I have a request from a collegue to ask this group if anyone can give us a
scientific name for bear root, a plant that is of some importance to
Native Americans from the central and northern Rocky Mountains. 

Thank you for any help.

---

From: [email-masked] (Doug Yanega)
Date: 25 Jan 1996 18:51:02 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (DougBack)

> Native Americans from the central and northern Rocky Mountains. 

There's a fern from that area known as "Bear's-paw-root" (from which a
vermifuge is derived), which I have listed here as Dryopteris
[=Polypodium] filix-mas (L.)

Sound like a possibility?
-- 
Doug Yanega     ([email-masked])
Illinois Natural History Survey, 607 E. Peabody Dr. 
Champaign, IL 61820  USA  (217) 244-6817 fax:(217) 333-4949
affiliate, University of Illinois Dept. of Entomology
"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is
    the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick

---

From: [email-masked] (Brad Hurley)
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 1996 07:07:46 -0500

> Native Americans from the central and northern Rocky Mountains. 

The plant you are referring to is Ligusticum porterii. It is used as a
medicinal plant by the Navajo; related species in the same genus are used
for similar medicinal purposes in China and New Zealand.

-- 
Brad Hurley
Freelance Environmental and Science Writing
31 Gage Street, Bellows Falls, VT 05101-1616
E-mail: [email-masked]