Black Snakeroot, Squaw Root, Rattle Root, Rattle Weed, Rattle Top, Bugbane, Cohosh, Bugbane, Cimicifuga, Cimicifuga rhizoma, Actaeae racemosae Radix, Macrotys Actaeae.

Traditional Chinese Medicine: Shengma refers to other Cimicifuga spp. rhizome (C. heracleifolia, C. dahurica, & C. foetida).

Note: Cimicifuga racemosa or black cohosh should not be confused with Caulophyllum thalictroides (L.) Michaux (Berberidaceae), or blue cohosh - an entirely different plant.

The genus Cimicifuga comprises 15 species of erect perennial plants of Northern Temperate distribution. C. foetida, found in SE Euope and in Siberia often goes by the common name of bugbane. C. racemosa commonly called black cohosh, is native to Eastern North America. C. racemosa is familiar to herbalists and gardeners alike and is a wildflower of moist or dry woods and cultivated as an ornamental. It is found in shady rich soil in woods from Maine to Ontario and Wisconsin, south to Georgia. The hardy perrenial produces clumps of quadrangular stems, up to 3 meters (9 feet) tall. It has large, alternate, 3-pinnately compound leaves with toothed edges, with the middle lobe the largest. Terminal leaflet is 3 lobed. Flowers are petalless with greenish white sepals, borne in tall racemes well above the foliage, blooming from June through September. The flowers are thought to be pollinated by flesh flies. (Strauch 1995, Leung & Foster 1996).

The generic name Cimicifuga is from the Latin, cimex, a kind of bug, and fugare, "to put to flight." The English equivalent is Bugbane, and refers to the belief that the plant's strong odor repels insects; in Europe and Siberia, pillows and mattresses were formerly stuffed with the dried tops of the Eurasian species (C. foetida) for this purpose. "Racemosa" refers to the arrangement of individual flowers on an elongated stock. "Cohosh" comes from an Algonquin word meaning "rough" and refers to the plant's lumpy blackish rhizomes. Alternate names, such as "rattle weed," refers to the sound of the dry seeds in their pods atop the flower stalks (Stauch 1995).