Why do we call our ourselves Bloodroot?

Bloodroot is an eastern woodland wildflower, Sanguinaria canadensis.

We found something symbolic in its slow spreading rhizomatous root system and the way each piece of root throws up its own grey-green leaf furled protectively around the eight-petaled white flower.  Any part of root, stem, or leaf "bleeds" a red juice.

Though we have subsequently learned that Native Americans used Bloodroot as a dye plant and that some Hungarians have used it in cough medicines (it belongs to the poppy family), we chose it as our name for its habit of growth, which seemed appropriate to the way we work together. 

Our intention was to form a working collective like that of Bloodroot, an interdependence, each separate and individual, independent but joined.