ID: The group of plants known as Rattlesnake-roots have clusters of bell shaped flower heads, each flower around 1/2" long and usually nodding. The clusters are stalked from the upper leaf axils. Flowers can be whitish to cream or pinkish with purple bracts. This species grows 1 to 5 feet high, the stem is usually purplish but can have a whitish bloom. The lower leaves can be deeply lobed and triangular at the base compared to the smaller and simpler upper stem leaves. Seed has a brown fluffy pappus. The genus name Prenanthes means "drooping blossom"; our particular species alba is Latin for "white," and the blossoms are a creamy white with a purple/cinnamon-brown calyx-like outer cover. They have a light scent. Broken stems exude a milky juice.

Names: Within the aster family are four plants of the genus Prenanthes that are native to Minnesota and all with similar common names: P. aspera Michx., known as Rough Rattlesnake-root or Rough White-lettuce; P. crepidinea Michx., known as great White-lettuce or Nodding Rattlesnake-root; P. racemosa Michx., known as purple rattlesnake-root or Glaucous White-lettuce; and our species in the Garden, P. alba L., White Rattlesnake-root or white lettuce. In medicinal folklore all are reported to produce similar results.

Lore and Uses: It is not believed that the plant has ever been listed in the U. S. Pharmacopeia, but in 1887 Dr. Charles Millspaugh reported that it has “Been known in domestic practice from an early date and is said to be an excellent antidote to the bite of the rattlesnake and other poisonous serpents.” In American Medicinal Plants, 1887, he goes on to explain exactly how it was used. The milky juice was recommended to be taken internally, while the leaves, steeped in water were to be frequently applied to the wound. Also, a decoction of the root could be taken.

In Indian Herbalogy of North America, Alma Hutchens gives the recipe for using the juice and root for dysentery or diarrhea. The juice could be drank. With the root you would grate it into small pieces. One teaspoonful of granulated root steeped in one cup of boiling water. Drink it cold, one cup a day, a large mouthful at a time (probably because it tasted terrible). Kelly Kindscher reports how the Choctaws made a tea of the tops for use to mitigate pain, while fellow Minnesotan Frances Densmore reported from her conversations with White Earth Chippewa women, that the Chippewa made a broth from the root that was drunk by women after childbirth to promote the flow of milk.

Many of these uses may stem from the old “Doctrine of Signatures,” where a relationship was presumed between a human ailment or body part and the color, shape or characteristic of a plant. Nothing scientific mind you, but practical folk medicine that science usually (but not always) cannot duplicate.

But the most fascinating use of the Rattlesnake-root plant, (getting finally to its common name) can only be best described by a direct quotation and it will be up to you to believe it or not! William Byrd of Virginia wrote in 1728 that “the rattlesnake has an utter antipathy to this plant, in-so-much that if you smear your hand with the juice of it, you may handle the viper safely. Thus much can I say of my own experience, that once in July, when these snakes are in their greatest vigor, I besmear’ed a dog’s nose with the powder of this root and made him trample on a large snake several times, which however, was so far from biting him that it perfectly sicken’d at the dog’s approach and turn’d its head from him with the utmost aversion.” (History of Folklore of North American Wildflowers, 1999, Timothy Coffey.).

List of all References: Reference List

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