Flower for the Day White Snakeroot 11-3-25

Our last offering, Fall Boneset (Eupetorium perfoliatum) looks similar to todays flower, white snakeroot (Ageratina altissima). They are both white flowered Native herbal perennials. Their differences lie in their leaf and stem structures and toxicity. The most significant difference is that boneset is used medicinally for fevers while white snakeroot is poisonous and can cause 'milk sickness'. If ingested by cows  the poison can be passed to humans via milk. Bonesets leaves are joined across the stem (perfoliate) and has hairy stems.The leaves of snakeroot  are separate with distinct leaf stalks. Its stems are hairless.

Here is a side by side image with boneset on the left and snakeroot with clean white flowers on the right.

White snakeroot  grows upright tp 5 feet producing multistep clumps. The leaves have serrated edges and grow to 6 inches long. At the end of the upper branches, flat-topped panicles or compound corymbs of white flower heads.  The flowers are a clean white color and after blooming, small seeds with fluffy white tails are released to blow in the wind. 

In the early 1800s, a devastating disease of unknown origin was sweeping across much of North America. It was almost always lethal, particularly in isolated mountain communities. The disease is characterized by trembling, vomiting, and severe intestinal pain, and if untreated, the symptoms can progress to weakness, difficulty standing or walking, complete loss of muscle coordination, stupor, and even coma; death usually occurs within a few days of the onset of these symptoms. Adult cows were not affected, but the disease killed their calves, and goats, horses, and sheep all fell victim to the plant's poison. The disease was prevalent in the south and the midwest.

In 1818 Abraham Lincoln's family was living in a small settlement in southern Indiana  known as Little Pigeon Creek. Like southern Illinois, this area of Indiana was untouched by the glaciers of the last Ice Age and as such is hilly and forested-the perfect habitat for many sorts of woodland animals, but not particularly good as pastureland for livestock.As much of the land had yet to be cleared, the cattle would forage in the woods, feeding on sedges and other assorted foliage including white snakeroot.

In 1818 Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln,  died after a week's sickness.Nancy got sick in late September and died on October 5. She was buried next to other victims of the disease. Her aunt, uncle, and several people in Little Pigeon Creek, Indiana died then as well. Abe and his father were unaffected. She was 34 years of age. Young Abraham then age 9 helped his father build a coffin by carving wooden pegs by hand. Some historians see Nancy's death as triggering the depression that seemed to haunt the president. 

It was not until 1828 that a frontier physician, Dr Anna Bixby (later Hobbs),  learned from a Shawnee woman that the disease was the result of drinking milk from cows that had eaten a native plant: white snakeroot. Unfortunately, few learned of Dr Bixby's revelation and white snakeroot was not officially recognized as the cause for many years.

A Bell, Still Unrung

She daily effuses
the close-mouthed
tantrum of her fevers.

Hog-tied and lunatic.                         
Born toothsome, 
unholy. Born uppity.        
    
Blue-jawed and out-order.   
Watched her sculptor                   
split her bitter seam        
              
with his scalding knife;
mauled through the errant                
flesh of her nature

and hemorrhaged mercury, 
molted snakeroot, a smoke           
of weeping silver. 
 
She, accused.
Sprung from the head 
of a thousand-fisted

wretch or a blood-dark                                   
cosmos undoubling
her bound body.  
                   
Vexed shrew. Blight of moon.         
She, armory. Pitched-milk pours
from her gold oracular.

Bred in her nest a lone                          
grenade, prized, unpried
its force-ripe wound.

She, disease. Often bruised
to brush the joy of anything.
Zombic. Un-groomed.      

Her night slinks open 
its sliding pin. One by one
these loose hopes

harpoon themselves
in, small-ghosts alighting
at her unwhoring.    

She, infirmary.
God's swallowed
lantern, tar-hair and thick.

Her black torchstruck.
A kindling stick.
No sinkle-bible fix

to cure this burning.
Shrill hell. Jezebel.

Isn't it lonely.

Safiya Sinclair

[Safiya Sinclair's "A Bell, Still Unrung" is a strange poem that uses the imagery of "molted snakeroot" to explore themes of illness, nature, and female identity. The reference ties into the plant's historical association with "milk sickness".]