Senega officinalis is a species of flowering plant in the milkwort family, Polygalaceae.

It is native to North America, where it is found in southern Canada and the central and eastern United States.

[4] Its genus name honors the Seneca people, a Native American group who used the plant to treat snakebite.

A mature plant can have up to 70 stems growing from a hard, woody rootstock that spreads horizontally.

[4] The plant grows on prairies and in woods and wet shoreline and riverbank habitat.

[5] According to Canadian botanist Frère Marie-Victorin, the Seneca may have been inspired to use the root to treat snakebite by its resemblance to the tail of a rattlesnake.

[1] Active compounds include saponins such as senegin, as well as phenolic acids, sorbitol derivatives, methyl salicylate (oil of wintergreen), and sterols.

[4] The expectorant property comes from the irritation of mucous membranes by the saponins, which causes an increase in respiratory secretions and a decrease in their viscosity, giving a productive cough.

It is still wild-harvested today, and three quarters of the world's supply is taken from the wilds of the Interlake Region of Manitoba.

Native peoples provide most of the labor, digging roots and selling them to drug companies.

Besides overexploitation, the plant has experienced loss of habitat to overgrazing and the conversion of land to urban and agricultural use.