#devil's bite

Veratrum viride

Common Names: American white hellebore, bugbane, devil’s bite, earth gall, green hellebore, Indian poke, itchweed, swamp hellebore, tickleweed, white hellebore. 

Medicinal Part: Rootstock. 

Description: American hellebore is a perennial plant whose branched stem may grow from 2 to 8 feet tall. It is found in swamps, moist meadows, and low grounds from Canada to Georgia, as far west as Minnesota, and in the mountains of the Pacific Coast states. The rootstock is thick and fleshy and has many large whitish roots. It has a strong, unpleasant smell when fresh and a sweetish-bitter, somewhat acrid taste. The leaves are alternate, changing from oval near the bottom to lanceolate or linear at the top. A more or less drooping panicle of green flowers appears from June to August. 

Properties and Uses: Diaphoretic, emetic, expectorant, febrifuge, narcotic. American hellebore acts as a cardiac depressant. Deaths are recorded from overdoses of the drug. Sometimes the leaves are gathered and cooked as a vegetable by mistake, with severe skin reactions and poisoning as a result.