Lewis & Clark

Today, on May 6, 1806, along the banks of Idaho’s Clearwater River, Lewis and Clark discovered the Nine-leaf lomatium, Lomatium triternatum.

A species of flowering plant in the carrot family and known by the common name nine leaf biscuitroot, the nine-leaf lomatium is so-named because each leaf divides into three narrow leaflets that, in turn, divided into three more (triternatum, from the Latin, means “three times three”).

Lewis and Clark collected many varieties of lomatiums which are found only west of the Mississippi River.

Lomatiums are used by herbalists as a remedy for viral illnesses. In 2018, the NIH reported the case of a woman who had taken lomatium extract - marked LDM-100 - for the flu and ended up with a severe rash all over her body for a week.  The title of the article, "Worse than the Disease? The Rash of Lomatium Dissectum"