Medicinal Monday Arumleaf Arrowhead

One of the most interesting things about the use of plants as medicine by Native Americans is that they have to know when to harvest the plants. At times, the medicinal qualities are inert, undeveloped, or dispersed by being too old. In most cases, external afflictions are treated with lotions or poultices, while internal troubles are almost invariably treated with medicinal tea. Sagittaria arifolia also known as Arumleaf Arrowhead is in the water-plantain family that was used for food as well as medicinally.

About Arumleaf Arrowhead 

This aquatic perennial plant can be found in New England including Connecticut and has spread throughout much of North America including Alaska and most of Canada. This plant doesn't grow in most of the south of North America. Arumleaf Arrowhead can be found growing in slow-moving and stagnant ponds, lakes, and small streams. This attractive plant has arrowhead-shaped leaves that rise from a fleshy tuber.  The whorls of flowers grow on an erect and stout single stem around arrowhead-shaped leaves that float. The flowers bloom from June-September depending on where they are located. The many veined leaves have three white petals and three sepals and are either staminate or pistillate. The lowest node bears female flowers and the upper nodes bear male flowers. The male flowers have yellow stamens and the female flower has a spherical cluster of pistils that develop into a group of tiny fruits. The leaves that are submerged have no true leaf blade. The roots are tipped with starchy tubers and the plant spreads by long creeping above-ground horizontal stems and often forms dense colonies. Arumleaf arrowhead may be found both in calm water and along the muddy shores of rivers and ponds and in marshes, swamps, and wet prairies. It is often found in moderately deep water with the blades floating or barely raised above the water.

Medicinal and Culinary Uses

Many Native American communities prized the tubers as food and would boil, bake, roast, or dry them. The Cheynne would peel the skin off the stems below the flowers and eat them raw. 

The most common use among Native American communities of this plant was digestive. Commonly the roots were steeped for indigestion. Another common steep a tea of the roots and use it as a diuretic. Many communities also made a poultice from the tubers and used the mixture to treat wounds and sores. The Ojibwe eat the corms for indigestion and in addition to boiling them to eat, they also candied the tubers with maple syrup. The Cheyenne and Chippewa used the leaves in a variety of medical mixtures. The Navajo used this plant to treat headaches. The Cheyenne gave dried leaves to horses to treat urinary troubles and sore mouths. 

Did You Know..

The prefix of the genus name, sagitta means arrow.

Arumleaf arrowhead is sometimes known as wapato, or occasionally as floating arrowhead. 

It is listed as endangered in Connecticut and New Jersey and threatened in New Hampshire and Ohio.

The tubers are a favorite of muskrats and beavers that store them in large caches.

Arum leaf arrowhead was one of the staple foods that kept the Lewis and Clark expedition fed in the winter of 1805.

The difference between Sagittaria latifolia and Sagittaria arifolia is that Sagittaria latifolia doesn't have leaves that float.

The poisonous arrow arum looks similar to the arum leaved arrowhead, except for the veins on the leaves.