Medicinal Plants - Dry Prairie

On this page you will find a listing of all the plants studied in the dry prairie. The links to the plant pages will open in a new window. The letter in square brackets is the accessible keyboard shortcut.

 Arrowlweaf Balcamroot Balsamorhiza sagittata (Pursh) Nutt

Arrowleaf Balsamroot plants look something like sunflowers with their long yellow rays of petals and yellow centers, but are much smaller, with the flowers growing to just 5-10 cm across. The flowers come out in late June and early July on the open slopes above the camas, or in prairie grasslands and open woods. The leaves are silvery grey and have a very distinct arrow shape and in fact, the whole plant is covered with tiny hairs that give it that silver grey look....

Common Gaillarda Gaillardia aristata Pursh

Common Gaillardia is a tall plant with hairy, greyish green leaves that are longer at the bottom, then get smaller as they get closer to the flower. This plant with its large (10 cm) yellow flowers is also called the Brown-eyed Susan because of its brown center. It blooms in the late summer months of July and August, growing along the roads and railway tracks and in dry, upland areas....

Common Yarrow  Achillea millefolium L.

Common Yarrow is sometimes thought of as the medicine chest of the prairies because it can be used to heal many things. If you make a tea of the leaves and flowers, the tea can be rubbed on your sore stomach. Drink it if you have gas. It is good to drink when your throat is sore. Use the tea to rub on other sore body parts or mush up the leaves and put the mush on swollen area....

Indian Breadroot [I] Psoralea esculenta

Indian Breadroot is a medium tall plant (15-30 centimetres) that grows on high prairie grassland areas. This plant's light bluish-purple flowers bloom in June and July. The flowers each have five petals of about 12 millimetres long and grouped together like a stretched-out, oval-shaped head of clover. The leaves are coarse, hairy and bright green in a palm shape with 5 leaflets on each....

Indian Tobacco Nicotiana quadrivalvis Pursh

Native peoples have smoked tobacco for praying, for pleasure and as medicine for a very long time. The kind of tobacco that our ancestors smoked was very different than the tobacco that you buy in the store. Indian Tobacco seeds were planted in a ritual and while praying by the Tobacco Society. When this tobacco was picked, it came from straight from the land, and although other plants might have been added to it, chemicals and preservatives were not....

Louisiana Sagewort Artemisia ludoviciana Nutt.

Our people call Louisiana Sage Wort - Man Sage. You will find a lot of it, on the prairie and on dry open soils. Elder Carolla Calf Robe told us that it grows a lot on the north end of the reserve. It grows from 30 cm to a meter tall with a hairy stem. The leaves have pointed tips and are hairy too. The entire plant is silvery green. You have to look really closely to see the yellowish flowers with white hairs....

Lupine Lupinus sp.

WARNING: All parts of lupines can be toxic if consumed in large quantities. The lupine, or Wolf turnip as it is sometimes called, is a tall (30-60 cm) plant that grows in open areas on high, dry, sandy plains. The leaves are dark green on top and lighter underneath, and arranged with 6-8 leaves, which can be 2.5-5 cm in length, attached together like the fingers of your hand....

Nineleaf Biscuitroot  Lomatium triternatum (Pursh) Coult. & Rose

WARNING! Many biscuitroot species look like the very poisonous wild Parsley family plants. Positive identification must be made before eating or drinking this plant in any form. Do not ingest during pregnancy. Nineleaf Biscuitroot grows in dry, rocky, often steep places and on dry patches on the prairie. It has a hollow stem with bright green leaves that look like parsley....

Medicinal Plants - Wet Prairie

On this page you will find a listing of all the plants studied. The links to the plant pages will open in a new window. The letter in square brackets is the accessible keyboard shortcut.

Buffalo Bean  Thermospsis rhombifolia

WARNING: All parts of Buffalo Bean are considered poisonous. Buffalo Bean or Golden Bean, is a plant our elders used when they wanted to dye a skin bag or arrows yellow. They would take the yellow flowers and make a strong tea and soak the thing they wanted colored in the tea. A very weak tea was also made to help people and horses with stomach pains....

Chokecherry Prunus virginiana L.

The chokecherry tree is a very generous tree. It gives us many things for eating, medicine and tools. You find the chokecherry at the edge of ravines, wooded areas and scrubby patches. It can be small like a bush of 2 metres or large like a tree up to 4 metres. The flowers have 5 white petals that bloom in May and June. The round, dark red, pitted berry comes later, in August and September....

Gooseberry Ribes oxyacanthoides L.

Gooseberry bushes have prickly branches and bright green leaves. The edges of the leaves are jagged, and can have 3-7 rounded segments, but the base of the leaf is heart-shaped, and they look sort of like maple leaves. The shrub blooms in June with lots of greenish white to cream coloured flowers close together. The round, reddish brown gooseberries turn a blackish color when they are ripe, and are 4-10 mm in diameter....

Locoweed Oxytropis sp.

WARNING: All parts of the Locoweed plant can be poisonous if taken in large quantities. Several species of locoweed concentrate the chemical selenium and are known to be poisonous. The flowers of the Locoweed can be purple or a deep blue, and grow on a soft hairy spike made up of 8-12 flowers. The spike of flowers can be 2.5-4 cm long. The plant blooms in June and July, and it likes to grow in areas of the grassland where it can get lots of moisture....

Narrow-leaf Dock Rumex mexicanus

Narrow-leaf Dock is a large, coarse plant with a stem that is strongly grooved and it has a long, thick root. It can grow up to two meters high. It has long bluish-green leaves and pale yellow flowers that produces dark red fruit. Narrow-leaf dock is found in wet, salty areas, waste areas and ditches, throughout the foothills and mountains. It works to clean the dirty water....

Prairie Aster]Aster sp.

The Prairie Aster is a little (2 cm) soft purple flower with a dark yellow centre found in scrubby roadside ditches or in moist spots on the open prairie. You see them blooming in August and September. The dark green, oval-shaped leaves grow on the smooth stem, and they are thick and smooth. This plant grows from 30-90 cm tall. Prairie Asters were rubbed on bouncing arrows by children for colour, and the flowers were also used to make necklaces by our elders....

Red Tea

Red tea is a plant that grows in swampy areas according to Elder Shirley Mountain Horse. Elder Adam Delaney told us that it has yellow flowers with a brown centre that are about 3 cm wide. The plant grows about 45 cm tall. Sandra Singer told us that you could cut the plant into pieces when it is dry or fresh, to use later on to make a tea. You can mix the Red Tea with Mint for flavour....

Red-osier Dogwood Cornus stolonifera

WARNING: All parts of Red-osier Dogwood can be poisonous, if taken in large amounts. Red-osier Dogwood is a bush with red bark that grows in coulees and damp ravines to a height of 90-180 cm. The stems are quite bendable and its medium green leaves are rounded at the base with a pointed tip and with short hairs at the bottom. In June, this Dogwood blossoms with tiny (1 mm) greenish white flowers that are clustered together in groups of 8-12 that make them look much bigger....

Roughfruit Fairybells Prosartes trachycarpa S. Wats.

This fragile plant has thin, delicate leaves and creamy flowers that hang from the tips of its 'branches'. In the summer, the tiny white flowers become a rough and leathery fruit divided into three sections, turning first yellow and then brilliant red; looking much like a small brightly coloured peach. These berries can be eaten raw. A tea of bark can be used as an eyewash for snowblindness....

Saskatoon  Amelanchier alnifolia (Nutt.) Nutt. ex M. Roemer

The Saskatoon plant gives us food to eat, medicine and wood for building things. The berries are really good just picked but you can also dry them and store them. When the berries are dried, you can boil them in water with a bit of fat and make a soup with it. Our elders served this soup at special ceremonies. Dried berries were crushed with a stone by our elders and mixed with fat and dried meat to make pemmican, a dried food stored for winter....

Silver Buffaloberry  Shepherdia argentea (Pursh) Nutt.

A Silver Buffaloberry Bush can be found near rivers and streams. It has silvery leaves and branches. The leaves are thick and if you look at them closely you will see brown spots. The branches look broken; they grow at odd angles and they have many thorns. The berries are an orangey scarlet colour and grow the whole length of the branch. The bush grows from 2 to 4 metres tall....

Sweetgrass  Hierchloe odorata

Sweetgrass is a smooth, flat-leaf bladed grass that grows 30-60 cm tall in moist areas. It likes low meadows or coulees. Elders Mary Rose and Margaret Gros Ventre Boy showed us that their roots have a purplish red color. It is harvested in late summer. Our teachers, Alvine Mountain Horse and Sylvia Gros Ventre Boy, showed us how to bind the stems at the lower end with other stems and how to braid it....

Water Smartweed  Polygonum amphibium L.

Elder Carolla Calf Robe told us that Bitter-root grows in swampy places on the reserve. In July, the whitish-purple flowers bloom and look like a spike. The leaves are about 10-20 cm long and are a deep green. Carolla says that there is no easy way to pick Bitter-root, they are collected from ponds and swampy areas and it is messy! You just have to put on your gumboots and go right in; sometimes you have to go knee high in the water to find some....

Western Meadow Rue Tahlictrum occidentale

Elder Carolla Wolf Child told us that Meadow Rue grows in wooded areas, often near Saskatoon bushes. Look for it in wooded areas and in the coulees. The bluish green leaves grow close to the ground. The flowers are on top of a skinny stem about 15 cm off of the ground. The yellowish flowers bloom from the middle of June to July and they don't last long....

Wild mint Mentha arvensis L.

A healing tea of mint can be made for upset stomachs and sore throats. Our elders used it for heart troubles. Mint works great at keeping away bugs and small animals because it has a strong smell. Our elders packed mint with food and in parfleshes for that reason. Our elders also disguised the smell of things from animals, like traps, by rubbing mint on them....

Willow [ Salix sp.

Where we live, there are many, many kinds of willow and we use the different willows for different things. One kind of willow we use to make a sweat lodge. One end of the willow is dug into the ground and the willow is bent over to make a cave shape. The willow frame is then covered with blankets or hides when we are ready for our sweat. Elder Harrison Wolf Calf told us that the Blood people have a special sweat lodge because there is one door to enter into it another door to leave....

Wolf Willow  Elaeagnus commutata Bernh. ex Rydb.

Wolf Willow or Silver Berry is a bush that grows 30 cm to 6 m high in the wet areas of the plains and at the edges of coulees. It shimmers silver in the sun and moonlight, with the flowers, berries and leaves all being a shade of silver. The flowers are silver yellow and grow to be about 3 mm across. The flowers grow together in groups of 3 or 4 in June....

Medicinal Plants - Floodplain

On this page you will find a listing of all the plants studied on the floodplain. The links to the plant pages will open in a new window. The letter in square brackets is the accessible keyboard shortcut.

Common Twinpod] Physaria didymocarpa (Hook.) Gray

WARNING: If you are pregnant, do not ingest this plant. Common Twinpod, a part of the mustard family, is a small, low-growing plant with dark green leaves. It has a very long taproot that travels on and on underground, searching for water. You could dig up to a metre deep and still not be near the end! That long tap root helps it grow along dry cut-banks or along the gravelly margins of streams....

Cottonwood Populus deltoides Bartr. ex Marsh. ssp. monilifera

Cottonwood Trees grow in the river plains where we live. Elder Pete Standing Alone explained that for Cottonwood seeds to grow, a river needs to flood. The tree is part of the poplar family and quickly grows up to 30 metres and can be up to a metre wide. It has smooth, pale bark when it is young but like people, the older the tree is the more ridged and furrowed it becomes....

Green Milkweed  Asclepias viridiflora Raf.

Green Milkweed is a thick, hairy herb that stands 60-290 cm tall. It grows in clumps in moist areas, meadows, beside fences and steam beds, in soil that is rich or sandy. It has lots of greenish white blossoms that are long and tube-shaped, with five petals. These are bunched together into a globe shape that is about 5-7 cm across. The leaves grow in pairs on either side of the stem....

Paper Birch  Betula papyrifera

Elder Pete Standing Alone told us that White Birch and Water Birch trees give us strong wood for making things like snowshoes and axles for wheels and sleighs. It also gives us good wood for burning. Paper birch can grow up to 15 metres. It has white or slivery gray bark and it peels off easily into thin strips, like paper. The light green leaves have lots of little teeth around their oval shape....

Rocky Mountain Maple  Acer glabrum Torr.

The Rocky Mountain Maple is a shrub or small tree that can grow to be about 3 m tall. It is most often found near creeks or rivers, because it needs lots of water. The leaves look like regular maple leaves in a style that is called palmate or palm-like. It has seeds with little wings that allow them to float on the breeze and travel long distances....

Yellow Angelica  Angelica dawsonii S. Wats.

WARNING: Angelica may be difficult to tell from Water Hemlock. Water Hemlock is one of the most poisonous plants in North America. Only 1.2 ml of the root may be fatal in 15 minutes. Positive identification is critical! Yellow Angelica grows in moist meadows or along stream banks. It grows 1 to 2 metres tall on a hollow stem. The tiny, yellow flowers on top look like a fireworks burst, all going out in a different direction....

Medicinal Plants - Forest

On this page you will find a listing of the plants studied from the forest. The links to the plant pages will open in a new window. The letter in square brackets is the accessible keyboard shortcut.

Alpine Fir Abies lasiocarpa (Hook.) Nutt.

Alpine Fir, or Sweet Pine, is a very important plant to our people. You will know a Sweet Pine when you see its pale, bluish-green needles, triangle shape, and gray or white bark. A special tree, it gives so much to both people and animals. Deer, elk, moose, and big horn sheep like to eat the bark, and grouse will eat the needles. It is tall when fully grown, up to 10 - 16 metres, with branches that reach all the way to the ground....

Creeping Juniper Juniperus horizontalis Moench

Creeping Juniper is an evergreen shrub that grows on rocky hillsides and in clearings. It has sharp green needles that grow together in groups of three. If you look at the needles up close, they are very scaly. Creeping Juniper has berries that start out green but ripen to a dusty blue. The berries can take up to 3 years to ripen! Berries are picked in the fall of the second year or in the spring of the third year, when they are sweeter....

Fireweed  Chamerion angustifolium ssp. angustifolium

The Fireweed plant has a long stem and is usually between 90-180 cm tall. It has pinkish purple flowers that bloom in July and August, with long, skinny leaves that run along the stem. They are seen often where land has been disturbed or burned. When that happens, their role is to protect the soil from blowing away or being carried away by rain, and to give food and shelter until the bushes and trees can grow back....

KinnikinnickArctostaphylos uva-ursi (L.) Spreng

Kinnikinnick is a trailing, low-growing evergreen shrub that grows to form mats 50-100 cm wide, but it does not have needles the way some other evergreens do. Instead, it has oval, dark green leaves that have lighter undersides. These leaves feel leathery to the touch. Kinnikinnick grows on well drained areas like the sandy slopes of the coulees or on the edges of mixed forests....

Lesser Spikemoss Selaginella densa Rydb.

Lesser Spikemoss is a dark green moss that grows in mats on the prarie in wet, gravelly areas. If you look closely at the plant, you can see tiny brownish-green flowers growing up out of the moss bed. The flowers look like little spikes. Lesser spikemoss was used to make a tea for pain. If a woman was in labour, it would help her have the baby more quickly and it would speed the afterbirth....

Lodgepole pine Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud.

The Lodgepole Pine is a tree that gives us medicine and its straight and narrow trunk helps us build many things. The Lodgepole Pine grows on the lower slopes of hills, like the Cypress and Porcupine Hills. It also grows in the mountains. It is an evergreen and can reach a height of 25 metres. The needles are in bunches of two and the cones are 2-5 cm long....

Medicinal Plants - Parkland

On this page you will find a listing of all the plants studied in the parkland. The links to the plant pages will open in a new window. The letter in square brackets is the accessible keyboard shortcut.

American False Hellebore Veratrum viride

WARNING: American False Hellebore roots are very poisionous and if ingested can cause death. American False Hellebore, which we call "Corn Lily", grows from its thick root up to 1-2 metres tall in low wooded areas with moist soil. It gets its name because it has leaves covered with fine hairs that grow up the stalk of the plant just like a corn stalk....

Fireberry Hawthorn  Crataegus chrysocarpa Ashe

The Fireberry Hawthorn has dark green leaves with jagged edges. It bursts into flower in May and June, producing clusters of little white 5-petalled flowers. Those flowers change into round red berries filled with seeds later in the summer. It grows in open woodland, coulees and at the edge of poplar groves. It needs to be in a place with a good amount of moisture....

Hookedspur Violet Viola adunca

WARNING: Violet leaves may be poisonous if a lot is ingested. Roots may cause vomiting! The Hookedspur Violet has 5 small(1.5 cm), hairy petals of bluish purple arranged three on the top and two on the bottom, the same way pansies are, with heart-shaped leaves at the base that are 4-6 cm wide. They like shady areas and moisture, so you may find them growing along the edges of aspen poplar groves, sloughs and bogs....

Larkspur Delphinium bicolor Nutt.

WARNING: Can be poisonous in large quantities! The most poisonous part is the seed. Our elders knew how to use poisonous plants for healing. They knew what part of the plant was safe and how much of the plant they could use safely. Unless you learn how to make these medicines from an elder, do not use this plant because you may get really sick....

Poplar] Populus sp.

The Poplar Tree grows in our foothills. It is a deciduous tree that reaches up to 25 m tall. Its branches make a large crown to collect the sunlight. The leaves are heart-shaped and are a darker green on the top and yellow green underneath. Its bark gets more furrowed with age, just like a human face does. The Poplar Tree gives us medicine, materials to build with and wood for fire....

Puffball Lycoperdaceae sp.

Puffballs are actually fungus that grow throughout the prairie in damp,shaded spots. They are a light brown globe shape about 2 to 5 cm across and they grow together in patches. When they are ripe, there is a tiny hole at the top of the globe. They are so much fun to stomp on when they are ripe because the spores come out in a cloud or puff, like smoke....

Quaking Aspen  Populus tremuloides

The Quaking Aspen gives its new buds to us to make a tea. When you put a drop of the tea in your eyes, it helps you with snow-blindness and sore eyes. The tea smells sweet and when you boil it down, you can use it as a perfume for yourself or your things. When our elders were very hungry and had little food to eat, the soft inner bark was eaten raw or roasted over a fire....

Selfheal Prunella vulgaris

Selfheal, also known as Woundwart or Heal All, belongs to the mint family. It grows in moist places at the edge of woody areas, scrubby patches, and near bodies of water. The plants grow to 10-30 cm tall. In July and August violet/purple/blue flowers, sometimes with white streaks, bloom. The flowers are together in 10-15 mm spikes at the top of the plant....

Sticky Geranium Geranium viscosissimum Fisch. & C.A. Mey. ex C.A.

Sticky Geranium is a hairy and sticky plant that grows 30-60 cm tall in the moist areas of our open prairie and on south-facing slopes in the woodlands. The flowers in this area are a deep lavender pink, 3-4 cm across, and have five petals. They bloom in June to July. The leaves look like little palms. They are medium green and about 4-10 cm wide....

Thimbleberry Rubus parviflorus Nutt.

Thimbleberries can be eaten fresh and taste good. They are a cousin to raspberries but thimbleberries have no thorns so they are easy to get! Dried leaves also make a delicious tea that is full of vitamins and minerals. Our elders made a tea of the berries and leaves for chest pains. You can use the berries to make quivers stiff and stronger. The berries make a good dye for tanned hide....

Wild Bergamot Monarda fistulosa L.

Wild Bergamot, also known as Horse Mint or Bee Balm, has fuzzy little pink or lilac flowers in July and August that are 2-4 cm long and bunch together to make a globe shape. The globe sits on top of a stem with triangular gray green leaves that are also fuzzy. Wild Bergamot grows 30-100 cm tall on the edges of scrubby patches and aspen poplar groves....

Wild Licorice Glycyrrhiza lepidota

The roots of the wild licorice plant can be chewed as a treat, like candy. The roots also have medicine to heal us. Elder Carolla Calf Robe told us that chewing the root is like sucking a cough drop; it works in the same way. A tea of the roots helps with toothaches, sore stomachs, diarrhea, coughs, fever, sore throats and earaches. Carolla explained that the tea works as a general tonic and that it cleanses your blood....

Wild Strawberry  Fragaria sp.

You can look for Wild Strawberry plants in moist, scrubby patches, aspen poplar groves, roadside ditches and wooded ravines. Before the berries come, the plant has white five-petalled flowers with a yellow center. The flowers are about 2 cm across and appear in May and June. The leaves are dark green and egg-shaped, about 7 cm wide and are grouped around the stems....

Yampa Perideridia gairdneri (Hook. & Arn.) Mathias

Yampa is a plant that grows on the moist edges of open hillsides, meadows and woodlands. It grows to be about 30-60 cm high and there are white flowers at the top of the plant. If you walk by it, you might think that the bunch of flowers look like upside down umbrellas. The root of the plant is the really important part and when you dig it up it looks like two little peanuts....