Hand a brown bear a dried osha root and it does something odd with it. It chews the root into a wet mash, then smears the mash over its shoulders and chest and works it into the fur on its head. That scene, filmed and described by a Colorado biology professor, is the modern half of the story of osha root and bears. The older half belongs to the Diné, the Lakota and other peoples who named the plant after the bear long before anyone pointed a camera at one.
Osha root and bears, as Shawn Sigstedt saw it
Shawn Sigstedt teaches biology at Colorado Mountain College. He also spent seven years living with a Navajo family in northern New Mexico, and that is where he heard the Navajo account of the bear and osha.
His first test, as he told the Steamboat Pilot & Today, was with a pair of adult brown bears kept in captivity in Colorado Springs. Their keepers called them Pa and Ma. Sigstedt gave them dried osha root. Ma chewed a large root to pulp, spread it across her shoulders and chest, sprayed some of the mush into the air and rubbed the rest into her head. Pa chewed a piece, then carried what was left over to Ma in a low, submissive posture. She used it and licked him on the nose.
He wrote the behavior up in 1990 under the title "Bear Medicine: 'Self-Medication' by Animals," and he later coined the word zoopharmacognosy for wild animals finding and using plants this way. Wikipedia's account of his captive tests also lists grizzly bears and polar bears. Each time the pattern was the same. Chew, mash, rub into the coat.
A camera on a ranch outside Steamboat Springs
More than twenty years after Pa and Ma, Sigstedt set a camouflaged motion-detector camera on a patch of osha on his ranch near Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It caught two bears, months apart, at the same plants. Both chewed the root, smeared the pulp on a tree and rubbed their bodies against the bark. A young bear kept rubbing its jaws on the trunk. In May 2014 he presented film of captive bears next to camera-trap footage of wild black bears at the Society of Ethnobiology conference.
Spring, and bears coming out of the den
The version most people hear is set in spring. Bears come out of hibernation thin and slow, and they go up the slopes to dig osha. Native-languages.org records this as the reason for the names "bear root" and "bear medicine". People watched bears eat the plant when they were weak from the winter. Johnathon Rhubarb's 2025 segment on KVNF public radio in Colorado tells it the same way, with bears digging the root after hibernation.
Field notes add small details. Wikipedia notes that bears visit the plants in the morning, which is why some harvesters only dig in the afternoon. The American Herbal Pharmacopoeia published a full osha monograph in 2018, and NutraIngredients ran its story on it under a headline using one of the plant's old names, "gift of the bear."
Osha stopped more than half the growth of the TB bacterium at the lowest concentration tested.
Why is osha called bear root?
Because the people who used it first said the bear showed them. The Diné tell how the bear gave osha to them as a medicine, and they credit the bear with leading them to it. Sigstedt put it this way: "They believe that the creator, through the bear, gave the Navajo the knowledge of osha and how to use it." Diné families used it for colds and a hoarse voice.
The bear runs through the names in other languages too.
- Lakota: mato tapejuta, which means bear medicine.
- Zuni: the Pueblo word Anshe, meaning bear, may be where "osha" itself comes from (native-languages.org).
- Ute: kwiyag'atu tukapi, one of many Native names for the plant that native-languages.org says carry the bear meaning.
- English: bear root, bear medicine and, in several Southwestern traditions, "the gift of the bear."
Some names skip the bear. The Rarámuri of Northern Mexico call it wasía, and Hispanic ranchers in New Mexico say chuchupate. Our full guide to osha root covers each group's traditional use in more detail.
The bear root plant up close
Osha is Ligusticum porteri, a member of the carrot and parsley family and a relative of lovage. It grows between 1,500 and 3,500 m. In Mexico it reaches the northern part of Chihuahua, and Mara's Bear Root comes from this mountain plant of Northern Mexico. The same species also grows in high mountains further north, into Montana.
You smell osha before you find it. The leaves give off a strong celery scent when bruised, stronger after frost, and the root smells of celery and something close to butterscotch. Most of that comes from Z-ligustilide, which makes up 0.15 to 2.5% of the root.
The plant is slow. Roots are often more than 10 years old by the time they're dug, almost all supply is wild-harvested, and United Plant Savers lists osha as At-Risk. It also shares its slopes with poison hemlock, which looks much like it above ground.
Bear Root today
Nobody needs to dig a hillside or tell osha from hemlock to try the plant the bears go for. Mara's Bear Root is an osha root tincture (an alcohol extract) in a 50 ml dropper bottle. Simple ingredients: premium quality extract.
Take 1 to 2 droppers a day. Hold it under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds and swallow, or stir it into tea, water, juice or a smoothie. The taste is earthy and warming, with the same sharp, celery-like bite you'd smell on the plant. A dropper stirred into morning tea, or into a water bottle after a hike, is an easy place to start.
The extract is the practical way to keep osha around. It comes sealed in dark Miron glass, which keeps light off the liquid, where loose root sits in a bag taking in air. One bottle lasts 30 to 50 days at 1 to 2 droppers a day and fits in a pocket. If you've seen the plant sold under both names and wondered which is which, bear root and osha root are the same plant.
Bear Root – Osha Root Tincture
50 ml dropper bottle. Ligusticum porteri from the mountains of Northern Mexico.
Add to bagBear Root considerations
Recommendation. Contains alcohol. Not recommended during pregnancy. If you're nursing or taking medication, ask your doctor before using it.
Questions people ask about osha and bears
Do bears actually chew osha root?
Yes. Shawn Sigstedt watched captive brown bears in Colorado Springs chew dried osha into a mash and rub it into their fur, and a motion camera on his ranch near Steamboat Springs later filmed wild bears doing the same with pulp and tree bark.
What is the bear medicine plant?
Bear medicine is a common name for osha, Ligusticum porteri. The Lakota call it mato tapejuta, which translates as bear medicine.
Why do bears dig osha in spring?
Native accounts recorded by native-languages.org say people watched bears eat osha when they came out of hibernation weak from the winter, and the plant's bear names come from those observations.
Is bear root the same plant as osha?
Yes. Bear root, bear medicine, osha and chuchupate are all names used for Ligusticum porteri.
Where does Mara's Bear Root come from?
Mara's Bear Root is made from osha, a mountain plant of Northern Mexico that grows between 1,500 and 3,500 m.