Download Traditional Uses for Plants

A Study of
Local Plants
and their
Traditional
Uses
Created by Miniota School Students
Park West School Division
June, 2013
 This is a
study of how plants
growing in and around Miniota,
Manitoba were used traditionally
by First Nation peoples.
 The plants have been sorted in
three ways: food, medicine,
household uses
Plantain is a common plant found
across the prairies. It was used
as a famine food, to treat stinging
nettle rash and to treat bug bites.
 Each slide was researched and
created by one of our students
Grade Three – Growth and Change in Plants

3-1-16 Identify how humans from various cultures
use plant parts for food and medicine

3-1-17 Investigate how humans from various
cultures make useful products from plant materials
Grade Four – Habitats and Communities

4-1-17 Recognize and appreciate how traditional
knowledge contributes to our understanding of plant
and animal populations and interactions
Grade Five – Maintaining a Healthy Body

5-1-15 Explain how human health may be affected
by lifestyle choices and natural and human caused
environmental factors
Grade 11 Biology – Wellness and Homeostasis

Increase awareness of personal wellness, as well as
personal and family health history. (GLO: B3)

B11-1-02: Develop a personal wellness plan. (GLOs:
B3, B5)

B11-1-03: Recognize how individual wellness
choices affect others. (GLOs: B3, B5)

speak to an Elder or Traditional
Knowledge Keeper

read magazine articles

ask someone in your family

do research on the internet

interview a park naturalist or botanist

check out books and encyclopedias
A helpful kit is, Medicines That Help Us by Christi Bellecourt
Researching and sharing family herbal
remedies is an important link to our past.
Ask your parents and grandparents how
they used plants when they were younger.
You may be surprised by their answers!!
The next series of slides will share with
you common plants and their uses. See if
you recognize any of the plants.
Dandelion leaves and roots are a
nutritious food. They also help
purify the blood and help
indigestion and heartburn.
Medicine Use
The First Nation peoples used Buttercup
flowers to make a medicine called
buttercup syrup. It was used to help with
kids’ sore throats. It must be used carefully
as it has a toxin in it that can be
dangerous.
Household Uses
They were used as a decoration.
The buttercup flower has
yellow shiny petals shaped
like an oval. They have green
stems and 2 leafs in the
stem. The Buttercup flower
usually grows 3-4 inches.
Location
Buttercups are found all over Canada. In
the USA Buttercups are called Coyote’s
Eye.
Chokecherry
Food
Berries were used to make pemmican, mixed
with elk, deer meat and fat. They also used
chokecherry for juice, pie, jam, jelly, vinegar, and
tarts.
Flowers are white and in long, dense clusters.
The fragrant flowers have 5 sepals, 5 petals,
and many stamens.
Leaves are from 1 to 3 1/2 inches long. The
underside of the leaf is somewhat paler than the
top of the leaf. The leaves turn bright yellow to
orange in the fall.
Growth Characteristics the shrub or small
tree, grows from, 6 to 25 feet tall.
Fruit is dark red to black, fleshy, cherry like. The
fruit is, ¼ to ½ inch in diameter.
Medicinal
It helps create more blood cells which helps with
your low iron. If you take a piece of bark and put
it in water and leave it in the sun for a few days,
it can be used for pink eye or eye infections.
They used the bark for bark tea for diarrhea,
lung infections, to cause sweating, as a cough
medicine and used to bring down fever.
Household items
The berries can be used for paints and dyes.
They used the branches to make furniture and
baskets.
Medical Uses
 Hawthorn has been use to lower blood
pressure. Hawthorn can also strengthen
your heart muscle and if you boil and drink
it, it will help eliminate toxins from your
body.
Food uses
Physical Facts
The round leaved hawthorn is a
shrub that has deep green
strongly veined, toothed leaves.
It has thorns that range from 1-5
inches in length. It produces red
berries.
 The berries can be used for sauces and
jams and the leaves can be eaten to reduce
hunger pangs.
Location

The Round Leaved Hawthorn can be found in
Europe, The Middle East and North America
Pennycress
 Tea made from the leaves can be used
to cure scurvy. Leaves rubbed on the
skin can help with rash from poison ivy.
The seed pods made into tea are good
for the stomach and it kills intestinal
worms. It also acts as a blood purifier
and It helps reduce fevers. It can be
used in the treatment of puss in the
lungs.
The small flowers are white in
open clusters. They have 3-4
petals. The leaves are green and
long. The plant height varies
from 5 – 24 inches.
 You can eat the young leaves. They
can be eaten raw or cooked and are
kind of bitter. Dried leaves contain 54%
protein and 1900 mg of vitamin C per
100 g. Pepper can be made from its
dried and crushed seed pods.
.
Household Item:
The prickly rose dried fruit was used on
powwow regalia before the use of
beads.
Medicinal:
You can boil the hips to make a paste
to stop you from itching.
The root can be boiled to make a cure
for diarrhea.
The petals can be dried, powdered and
crushed to help relieve heartburn
Food:
The hips of the Prickly Rose can be
eaten but if you eat to many it can
cause Diarrhea.
Do not eat the seeds as they cause
itchy bum.
Food uses:
people eat Saskatoon berries
because they are sweet and
tasty.They are used to make
pies, crisps, tea, jams, jelly,
juice
They are a purple color with
green leaves and a pinky color
of branches. They often grow in
bunches and very rarely will there
ever be one or to in a bunch. They
grow to be over 15 feet.
Location: The Saskatoon grows in the
Canadian Prairies, Northern Canada,
British Columbia, the Northwest and
central United States and Alaska
Medicinal uses: Teas made of
the inner bark and roots were
used to help diarrhea,
dysentery, and upset
stomachs.
House uses:
The wood of the bush itself
was weighty and flexible and
useful in arrows and other
tools, basket frames and
cross pieces for canoes.
Household:
You can use the seeds and berries for beads.
The bark can be used for strong rope or
turned into baskets.
The berries can be used for soap and the
flowers can be used for perfumes or massage
oils.
Medicinal:
The bark mixed with grease was used to
treat frost bite.
Description
Silverberry flower petals are silver
on the outside and yellow on the
inside. The berry is silvery green and
has a large hard seed. The branches
are a rusty color with long silvery
green leaves. It is also known as the
wolf willow and silver buffalo berry.
Food:
The berries were cooked in grease, peeled
and eaten like candy.
The berries were also cooked into soup.
Swamp Birch
Medicinal Uses: The
branches were used to make
a tea to help headaches and
it also eased rheumatism
and stomach cramps.
Household uses: the
swamp birch was used to
make furniture and canoes.
Location: It is found in
wetland forests.
Size: 40-70' tall and 35-35'
wide. The height is 4m (13ft)
the leaves are 2-3cm (0.81.2in).
Food: Inner bark was used
to make a powder for cereals
and to make bread.
Medicinal Uses:
It can be used as a medicine for
kidney and bladder stones, weight
loss, hair loss, gout, frostbite, fluid
retention, urinary tract infections,
incontinence, and used on the skin
to promote healing wounds.
Scouring rush is also called
Horsetail, Snake grass and
Candock. The plant can grow 25 feet tall. It is long, thin,
segmented with vertical ribs
along the stem. It lives in the
majority of Canada and USA in
wet, sandy soil.
Household uses:
Its outer coating is covered in a
sandy substance so it can be used
to clean metal or polish wood.
Pin Cherry
Food:
Many people ate them fresh or used in
jams or jellies. The cherries were also used
in small cakes and breads, while the dried
fruits were taken as hunting food.
A small, deciduous tree with a
height of 15 - 50 feet tall and
about one foot in diameter. The
red berries look like a sphere
and hang by a stem. They grow
well in open areas such as fields
and in dry soils.
Medicine:
The bark was used for cough medicines.
A bark tea was also used to treat blood
poisoning. It was also used to treat sore
eyes and stomach pains.
Household:
The bark was also used in basketry,
especially in British Columbia where they
would soak it in a red or black dye.
Smooth Wild Strawberry
There are two kinds of wild strawberries
in Manitoba. American wild strawberry is
the most common in the southwestern
1/3 of the province growing in moist
grassland and forest habitats. The
smooth wild strawberry is more often
found in drier sites with well drained
sandy soils but both strawberries are
common throughout Manitoba.
Medicine:
People take the smooth wild
strawberry for a wide range of
conditions including diarrhea,
yellowed skin jaundice, pain
and swelling, fever, night
sweats,
and “tired blood” anemia
Food:
The berries are sweet and can
be eaten on their own or used
to make juice, jam, jelly, or
added to other food.
Western Snowberry
Medicine

The fruit have a gently cleansing and healing effect
on the skin. The berries kill body parasites and
heals wounds. The leaves are used on eyes that
are inflamed.
Food
The western Snowberry branches are a
pale green or light red brown. When it’s
older they become grey brown. The
leaves are 6cm long. They are thick and
have a pale color underneath the leaves.
The flowers are in clusters on the plant.
They are a pinkish white color. The fruit
is a greenish white color and it is in small
clusters. In the autumn they turn purple.
The fruit is poisonous. This plant is
found in dry open woodland, river
valleys, hillsides, ravines, and over
grazed prairies.

The branches and leaves are poisonous and will
cause vomiting if eaten. It would take large
amounts of the fruit to produce toxic symptoms.
These symptoms are, vomiting, nausea and
abdominal pain.

You have to boil the berries before eating. The
berries have a bitter taste and are not commonly
used until all else fails.
Medicine:
Western water horehound is
used to reduce coughing. It
contains oils that help dry the
skin. It is also used to stop
bleeding from the lungs and a
disease called consumption.
Western water-horehound may be found at
lower elevations in the valleys in moist soils
in marshes and along the shores of rivers,
lakes and streams. The leaves are slim,
tapering with toothed edges. The stems are
covered in hairs and are 20-80 cm in
height.
Food:
The roots are edible and
can be eaten raw or
cooked.
Wild Black Currant
Medicine:
The stems are 3 - 5 feet tall. The
blades of the leaf are one and a
half inches long and across. The
petals are up to 3" long, light green,
and hairy. Each berry contains a lot
of small seeds. The berries that
grow on the plant are black with a
smooth surface. Greenish yellow
flowers grow on this plant.
This plant can be found right
across Canada.
Dried leaves are used to treat arthritis, gout, joint
pain, diarrhea, and colic. It is also used to treat
coughs, colds, and urinary problems. The leaves
can be applied directly to wounds and insect bites
to soothe them.
Food:
The berries are edible and high in vitamin C. The
berries can be used to make pies and jam.
Household:
Some people use this plant for perfumes.
Wild Mint
Food:
Wild Mint is used as a herb and can be
eaten raw or added to food for flavouring.
Household:
Powdered leaves can be sprinkled on
berries/drying meat to repel insects.
It is very aromatic and can be used to
make things smell nice.
It can be 20 to 80 cm tall ands
it has a green stem, serrated
leaves and whitish purplish
flowers. Location:
Grows in moist areas in
plains, foothills, and mountain
regions.
Medicinal:
First Nations made a lotion for a fever and
the flu. A tea was made from it to help with
diarrhea, cramps and upset stomachs.
Wild
Raspberry
Food:
Wild raspberry, leaves were a tasty
and nutritious herb. Red raspberry
fruits were a common snack.
Some First Nation use wild raspberry
as a tea.
Description
Single canes grow up to five feet
in height. Canes are covered in
small thorns. Red fruit is made up
of over one hundred drupelets.
The plant can be found across
Canada.
Medicine:
The leaves were used to cure upset
stomachs, diarrhea, respiratory
problems, sore throats and skin
problems.
The leaves and roots were used to
help with cramps, morning sickness,
preventing miscarriages and easing
labour and delivery.

Park West School Division
would like to thank Principal
Trevor Lewis and the Grade
6, 7 and 8 class from Miniota
School for taking on this
project and sharing their
research with the rest of the
division.

Cort Dogniez, First Nations
and Metis Education
Facilitator for leadership and
support.