What Does Osha Root Look Like? How to Tell It From Hemlock

Osha (Ligusticum porteri) is a tall mountain member of the carrot family, with lacy leaves, flat white flower heads and a thick brown root topped with a fringe of what looks like coarse hair. When people ask what does osha root look like, that fringe is the first thing herbalists point to. It is a collar of old leaf bases around the top of the root, and none of osha's poisonous relatives grow one. The plant's names and history are in our full guide to osha root. This post sticks to what it looks like.

What does osha root look like once it's dug?

The root is a stout taproot under a thick, woody rootstock. The outer skin is dark chocolate brown and wrinkled. Inside it is yellowish, with a soapy pith.

At the top sits the osha root hairy crown. Each year the leaves die back, and their bases stay behind as a collar of dead fibres around the crown. On an old plant the collar looks like a brown, matted beard. The organic gardening writer Howard Garrett also noted that the leaf bases, where they join the crown, carry a reddish tint he called unique to osha.

Then there is the smell. Collectors describe it as spicy celery, and some add butterscotch. The roots herbalists prize come from plants at least ten years old, according to the Kansas Biological Survey report (Kindscher and colleagues, 2013).

What does the osha plant look like above ground?

Most plants stand 50 to 130 cm tall. In good stands in New Mexico, Colorado and Utah they reach six or seven feet. The stems are stout and hollow, smooth or covered in fine hairs, and branch near the top. The only colour sits at the very base, where the leaf stalks meet the crown in a reddish purple flush.

The leaves look like a large parsley, bigger than those of poison hemlock. The University of Arizona's Yavapai County plant guide measures leaves up to 20 inches long, divided into three parts and cut again into lobes, with the biggest basal leaves on stalks up to 12 inches. Bruised, they smell of celery, much like osha's relative, garden lovage.

From June to August the plant sends up flat-topped compound umbels of tiny white flowers, each 2 to 5 mm across with five petals (Wilson, Drylands Institute, 2007). A full umbel opens to about 4 inches wide. By late autumn the tops have died back to the rootstock, and the root's smell is strongest after the first frosts.

Where it grows

Osha is strictly a mountain plant. Most sources place it between 1,500 and 3,500 m. It grows in meadows and among aspen, fir and spruce, in deep, moist soil, never in standing water. Kew's Plants of the World Online lists its native range as Wyoming and Idaho south through the Rockies to Sonora, Chihuahua and Durango in Mexico.

Osha plant identification next to poison and water hemlock

Osha shares its family with two of the most poisonous plants in North America, and all three are tall, white-flowered and ferny. The differences botanists list:

• Stem spots. Poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) has hollow, hairless stems with red-purple spots or splotches running up them, per Washington State's invasive species fact sheet. Western water hemlock (Cicuta douglasii) has purplish spots too. Osha has no spots.
• Root. Poison hemlock has a white taproot with no hairy collar. Water hemlock's stem base and tubers have horizontal chambers inside and hold a yellowish, oily liquid (cicutoxin).
• Smell. Poison hemlock leaves smell musty or mousy. Osha smells of celery.
• Where it stands. Water hemlock grows in marshes, ditches and stream banks. Osha avoids waterlogged ground.
• Life cycle. Poison hemlock is a biennial that spends its first year as a low rosette. Osha is a long-lived perennial.

Smell alone proves nothing. The herbalist Howie Brounstein has pointed out that a water hemlock root growing inside an osha clump will smell like osha.

Dried root in a bag can't be checked by eye

Every feature above belongs to a whole plant in the ground. Once a root is washed, trimmed and chopped, the hairy collar and the leaves are gone. The herbalist Claire DeLeo has noted that commercial osha is smaller than wild root and has had its hair removed. A bag of brown chips can't tell you which plant it came from.

Almost all commercial osha is wild-harvested, because it is slow and hard to farm. In 2010 the trade reported 2,853 lb of dried root and 1,942 lb of fresh root harvested (American Herbal Products Association figures, cited by Kindscher in 2013). United Plant Savers lists osha as At-Risk, and a US Forest Service moratorium on harvest from public forests began in 1999. Each root dug is often a plant ten or more years old.

So the identification work has to happen at the source, by people who know the plant in its own mountains. For most people, the sensible way to buy osha is as an extract from a maker who does that work. Our notes on what to check before you buy an osha root tincture cover the label details.

Bear Root is osha from the mountains of Northern Mexico

Mara's Bear Root is Ligusticum porteri, a mountain plant of Northern Mexico, harvested at the southern end of osha's range. The name comes from the story that bears dig up the root and chew it. The Lakota call it mato tapejuta, bear medicine. Further south, Rarámuri families brewed it as a tea for stomach pain and fever. In 2008, University of Texas at El Paso researchers found the root the Rarámuri use stopped more than half the growth of the TB bacterium at the lowest concentration tested.

The taste is earthy and warming, with a sharp, celery-like bite from the root. That bite is the same celery note that marks the plant on the mountainside. Keep it as a daily ritual any time of year, 1 to 2 droppers a day. Hold it under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds and swallow, or stir it into a morning or evening tea, or into your water bottle after a hike or a run. Simple ingredients: premium quality extract. The 50 ml bottle is dark Miron glass, which keeps light off the extract, and it lasts 30 to 50 days at that dose.

Bear Root – Osha Root Tincture

50 ml dropper bottle. Ligusticum porteri from the mountains of Northern Mexico.

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Bear Root considerations

Contains alcohol. Not recommended during pregnancy. If you're nursing or taking medication, ask your doctor before using it.

Questions people ask

What colour is osha root?

The outside is dark chocolate brown and wrinkled, and the inside is yellowish with a pale, soapy centre. Fresh roots still carry the brown, hair-like collar of old leaf bases at the top.

What does osha smell like?

Strong celery, often described as spicy, with a sweet note some people compare to butterscotch. The leaves smell the same when bruised.

Is osha the same plant as lovage?

They are relatives. Osha is Ligusticum porteri, garden lovage is Levisticum officinale, and both belong to the carrot family and share a celery-like smell.

How old is an osha root when it's dug?

Roots worth harvesting usually come from plants at least ten years old, with a thick, woody rootstock. Commercial dried root is usually smaller, since the trade trims it.

Why is osha so hard to find farmed?

It grows slowly, with fungi in its native mountain soil, and takes years to reach harvest size. Almost all of it is still wild-harvested, and United Plant Savers lists it as At-Risk.