A popular name of several plants: esp. the Tormentil (Potentilla Tormentilla); Crimson Crane’s Bill (Geranium sanguineum), and Red Puccoon (Sanguinaria canadensis) of N. America.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, 48. The sixth [kind of Geranium] is called Sanguine roote, or Bloud roote.
1722. Dudley, in Phil. Trans., XXXII. 295. Remedies for the Sting of a Rattlesnake; among others … is a Root they call Blood-root.
1865. Parkman, Champlain, ix. (1875), 307. The white stars of the bloodroot gleamed among dank, fallen leaves.
