Any of several plants native to North America with medicinal properties, such as black cohosh or blue cohosh.
From Algonquian languages, likely Powhatan or a related language. The word referred to medicinal plants used by Indigenous peoples and entered English through colonial contact.
Black cohosh has been used for hundreds of years to treat menopause symptoms, and modern science has actually confirmed it works—showing that Indigenous plant knowledge contained real pharmacological wisdom.
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