True Unicorn Root

For generations, Native American nations of the eastern woodlands and later the granny-women and midwives of Appalachia turned to the bitter root of Aletris farinosa as a tonic for a troubled stomach and a trusted support through a woman's cycles and pregnancy. Its common names tell its story plainly: colic root for its digestive use, and unicorn root for the odd, single spike of mealy white flowers it sends up each summer. By the nineteenth century it had earned a steady place in American Eclectic and physiomedical practice, where physicians listed it among the native tonics worth keeping on the dispensary shelf. It was valued less as a dramatic cure and more as a slow, steadying presence, the kind of root a household kept on hand rather than reached for only in emergencies.