11/6/2014

Bitterroot | Native American Encyclopedia

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Bitterroot

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Published on June 10, 2014 by Amy

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Bitterroot
Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva Pursh) is a small, low plant with a pink to white flower. It is the state flower of Montana,
United States.
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The plant is a low-growing perennial plant with a fleshy taproot and a simple or branched base. The flower stems are
leafless, 13 cm tall, bearing at the tip a whorl of 56 linear bracts which are 510 mm long. A single flower appears on
each stem with 69 oval-shaped sepals. They range in color from whitish to deep pink or rose during May and June.
The petals (usually about 15) are oblong in shape and are 1835 mm long.
At maturity, the bitterroot produces egg-shaped capsules with 620 nearly round seeds.
The plant grows on gravelly to heavy, usually dry soil, in scablands or foothills areas. It is found on sagebrush plains to
the lower mountains, in western and south central Montana. It ranges in the north from British Columbia to southern
California, and on the east side of the Cascade Range to Colorado and Arizona.

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French trappers knew the plant as racme amer (bitter root).

Native American names included spetlum or spetlem, meaning bitter, nakamtcu (Ktanxa: naqamu), and motaheseotse (Cheyenne, black medicine)
The roots were consumed by tribes such as the Shoshone and the Flathead Indians as an infrequent delicacy.
Traditionally, the Ktunaxa cooked bitterroot with grouse. For the Ktunaxa, bitterroot is eaten with sugar; other tribes
prefer eating it with salt. The Lemhi Shoshone believed the small red core found in the upper taproot had special
powers, notably being able to stop a bear attack.
Meriwether Lewis ate bitterroot in 1805 and 1806 during the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The specimens he brought
back were identified and given their scientific name, Lewisia rediviva, by a German-American botanist, Frederick Pursh.
The bitterroot was selected as the Montana state flower on February 27, 1895.
Three major geographic features, the Bitterroot Mountains (running north-south and forming the divide between Idaho
and Montana), the Bitterroot Valley, and the Bitterroot River (which flows south-north, terminating in the Clark Fork
river in the city of Missoula), owe the origins of their names to this flower.
Source: wikipedia
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Based on the collective work of NativeAmericanEncyclopedia.com, 2014 Native American Encyclopedia.
Cite This Source | Link To Bitterroot
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Tags: Bitterroot, British Columbia, Cascade Range, Ktunaxa, Montana
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