Red Root (Ceanothus americanus) is a half-hardy shrub growing to 4 or 5 feet high. It has downy leaves and stems and small ornamental white flowers in great numbers, coming into bloom June or July, followed by bluntly triangular seedvessels. It is usually called 'New Jersey Tea' in America because its leaves were used as a substitute for tea during the War of Independence. In Canada, it is used to dye wool a cinnamon color. It takes its name from its large red roots. Its wood is tough, pale brown red, with fine rays - taste bitter and astringent with no odor. Fracture hard, tough, splintering. Its bark is brittle, dark-colored and thin.

The leaves of Red Root are said to contain tannin, a soft resin and bitter extract, a green coloring matter similar to green tea in color and taste, gum a volatile substance, lignin, and a principle called Ceanothine.

Red Root exhibits astringent, antispasmodic, anti-syphilitic expectorant and sedative properties, used in asthma, chronic bronchitis, whooping-cough, consumption, and dysentery; also as a mouth-wash and gargle, and as an injection in gonorrhea, gleet and leucorrhoea.

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