A plant (genus Polemonium) with roots that were traditionally used medicinally, possibly to treat abscesses and skin infections.
From 'abscess' plus 'root,' a folk medicine naming convention where plants were named for the ailments they supposedly treated, a practice called 'doctrine of signatures.'
Before germ theory, people used the 'doctrine of signatures'—if something looked infected, they treated it with a plant that looked infected or root-like; the plant was named for the cure, not for science.
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