Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

HOARY PUCCOON

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Lithospermum canescens (Michx. ) Lehm.

Douglas County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 4-16 inches

Family: Boraginaceae - Borage Family

Flowering Period: April, May, June

Also Called:

Hoary gromwell, indian paint.

Stems:

Often several, usually simple or sometimes branched near tip, pubescence soft-hairy and mainly appressed; tips erect.

Leaves:

Alternate, often ascending, lanceolate to narrowly-oblong, .8 to 2.4 inches long, 1/6 to 1/2 inch wide, gray or whitish soft-hairy; tips blunt; primary stem leaves with 1 mid-rib.

Inflorescences:

Cyme, leafy, densely flowered, terminal.

Flowers:

Bracts much longer than calyx; calyx 1/6 to 3/4 inch long, lobes 5, narrow, flat, nearly free, 1/8 to 1/4 inch long, soft-hairy; corolla showy, funnel- to trumpet-shaped, 1/4 to 3/4 inch long, to 3/5 inch wide, yellow-orange, not bearded inside at base; lobes 5, entire, 1/5 to 1/4 inch long; stamens 5.

Fruits:

Nutlets, 1-4, egg-shaped, hard, shiny, cream-colored; each containing one seed.

Habitat:

Dry prairies, dry open or rocky woods, roadsides; seldom on sandy soils.

Distribution:

East 1/3 of Kansas.

Uses:

The red taproot was used to make a red dye. Native American children would chew the root with gum to color it red and chew gum with the flowers to color it yellow. A compound medicinal tea was taken internally and rubbed on the body to quiet someone nearing convulsions.

See also Carolina puccoon and fringed puccoon .

Hoary puccoon flowers