Northern ground cone

As medicine 

The white core at the base of the plant is ground into a powder or chewed as a medicine. Alfred Semple’s great-grandmother used to mix the powder with grease and apply it to skin rashes. New plants have a white part in the middle of the root, referred to as “potatoes.” This part can also be boiled and eaten to increase appetite or relieve stomach aches.

 

Ground cone is sometimes called “pipe” as many Elders remember using it to make pipes when they were children. Young plants were cut and the dry portion that grows above the ground discarded. The wet, bulb-like portion was dried and had a hole cut into it to serve as a pipe bowl. After drying, it was filled with tobacco or dried willows. Sometimes the ground cone roots were dried, pounded and mixed with the tobacco.