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Chuck Johnson, Fairbanks, Alaska, is the Winner!

Rattlesnake Plantain is the answer for Clearwater Country History Trivia #675 a special feature to celebrate the history and heritage of Clearwater Country.

Join in the discovery!

Monday: Moisture on the inside

Tuesday: A serious injury

Wednesday: A poultice

Friday: Covered with a shirttail for a bandage

Saturday: Medicinal value

Monday: Some would call it a weed

Tuesday: Like was two-ply

Wednesday: Grows in specific places

Thursday: Lots of moisture needed

Friday: 2,500 to 3,500 feet in elevation

Monday: Think rattle

In the book White Pines and Fires: Cooperative Forestry in Idaho, A.B. Curtis tells about an incident in which his nose was seriously injured. Curtis was using a very sharp axe to pull logs into a pile so they could burn them. One of them was particularly heavy and hard to handle. It wouldn't move so he kept pulling until the axe came loose all at once and hit him right square in the nose. Curtis had a gash and it was bleeding pretty badly. Theodore Fohl saw the situation and told him to lay down and he would fix it.

Fohl went and gathered a weed he knew about. Then he rubbed the leaves between his hands, and then split the leaves lengthwise - it was in other words a kind two-ply leaf with moisture on the inside. He made a poultice and put it over Curtis's nose and used a shirttail as a bandage. Curtis said he got along just fine. It was a two to three day walk out of the location to be able to get help from a doctor, so they had to rely on Fohl's knowledge of weeds that had medicinal value.

Curtis tried for several years to find out what the name of the 'weed' was. He told a college professor that It grew only in certain locations between 2,500 and 3,500 feet in elevation. It needed lots of moisture and a full canopy. He eventually found out it was called Rattlesnake Plantain. (Goodyera Oblongtfolia).

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