Hydrastis canadensis Golden Seal Seed and Potted Plants
(hy-DRASS-tiss   ka-na-DEN-sis) 
Easyliving Native Perennial Wildflowers
Native Wild Flower Plants & Seeds for Home Landscaping & Prairie Restoration

click on image for larger Hydrastis canadensis Golden Seal picture

For other flowers visit the wildflower seed list or  the Potted Plant List to order seed copy the orderform or  email questions, comments, and orders to john@easywildflowers.com 

Hydrastis (hy-DRASS-tiss) = The leaf resembles Hydrophyllum (water leaf); hence the name
canadensis (ka-na-DEN-sis) = Of or from Canada and North America

    Please contact us by email with your address for shipping charges & availability on Hydrastis canadensis (Golden Seal) potted plants, $6 each plus boxing & UPS shipping.   Potted Plants are available for spring 2010.

Hydrastis canadensis Golden Seal seed packets are $2.50 each plus shipping (approximately 35 seeds)
Seed shipping chart at bottom of page.

Hydrastis canadensis Golden Seal is small native woodland wildflower and a nice addition to the woodland shade garden.   Golden Seal has attractive leaves with a small 1/2 inch wide white flower in spring and a red fruit in June/July.   grows in varied conditions including dry open woodlands or upper slopes, ridges, glades, savanahas, prairies and moist low or rocky woods along wooded streams and in ravines and valleys.  Hydrastis canadensis Golden Seal grows wild from New York to Minnesota, south to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas.   Hydrastis canadensis Golden Seal plants can be cultivated for commercial use.  Plants growing in the wild are in decline in many areas due to root diggers.

Hydrastis canadensis Golden Seal is listed as threatened or endangered in several states - Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, 

Plant Hydrastis canadensis Golden Seal in the shade garden with other native woodland wildflowers like, Columbine  Green Dragon  American Spikenard  Jack-in-the-pulpit  Goat's Beard  Wild Ginger  Wild Geranium  Virginia Bluebells  Woodland Phlox  Bloodroot  Celandine Poppy   Woodland Spiderwort  Purple Trillium   White Trillium  Blue Cohosh  Black Cohosh  Shooting Star  Ginseng   Christmas Fern   Dutchman's Breeches 

The map below shows areas where native Hydrastis canadensis Golden Seal wild flower plants grow wild but it can be planted and will grow over a larger portion of the US.  USDA plant hardiness zones 3 to 8. 

Please contact us by email with your address for shipping charges & availability on Hydrastis canadensis Golden Seal potted plants

We accept payment by check, money order, and through Paypal

The minimum seed order amount is $10, this can be a combination of different seeds.

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Easyliving Wildflowers
PO Box  522
Willow Springs,  Mo.  65793
phone-fax 417-469-2611

Native Hydrastis canadensis Golden Seal plant distribution map complements of USDA, NRCS. 2001. The PLANTS Database, Version 3.1
  (http://plants.usda.gov). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

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Woodland garden, native plant garden, shaded naturalized plantings or wild garden
Golden seal is a native Missouri wildflower which occurs in rich woods, wooded slopes and valleys, and typically grows 10-15" tall. Features a single, large, palmately lobed, wrinkled, basal leaf (to 8" wide) and a two-leafed flower stalk topped with a solitary, yellowish green to greenish white, apetalous flower with prominent whitish stamens. Flowers bloom in spring, and give way to attractive but inedible scarlet red berries. Hydrastine is a bitter alkaloid which is extracted from the rootstock for certain pharmacological purposes (aids digestion or inhibits bleeding). Rootstock was used by early Americans for a variety of purposes including tonic, diuretic, insect repellant and yellow dye. All parts of the plant are poisonous in large doses, however. Common name is in reference to the plant's thick, yellow rhizome

Goldenseal becomes 6-12 in. tall, usually bearing three maple-like, shiny-green leaves. The stem is terminated by a single, white flower with yellow stamens followed by a tight cluster of red fruit. 1 large, wrinkled, basal leaf and a hairy stalk bearing 1 flower above a pair of 5-lobed stem leaves, all rising from a yellow, underground stem.

Lacking petals and losing the sepals early, the flowers of this species owe their color to the many whitish stamens. The plant was used medicinally by Native Americans and colonists, and is still in use today, ranking with American Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), of the ginseng family (Araliaceae), as one of the most-collected of eastern North American medicinal herbs. Its current rarity is due at least in part to overcollection.

Easily propagated by seed, division or root cuttings. To propagate by division, divide the rhizomes when the plant is dormant. To grow from seed, sow fresh seed and cover lightly with leafmold. Keep the seeds moist; they will stratify by themselves.

Moist, humus-rich soil.
Conditions Comments: A deciduous leaf winter cover is desirable. A good ground cover for moist, shady places. The knotty yellow rhizomes are used in medicine and have been collected so extensively that the plant is nearly exterminated.