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Red River of the North

a navigable river of the United States and Canada, rises in Elbow Lake, Minn., near the sources of the Mississippi, and flows S. and W. to Breckinridge, then N., forming the boundary between Minnesota and North Dakota, and so into Manitoba and through a flat country to Lake Winnipeg. Its course is 665 miles (525 in the United States). The Red River Settlement was the origin of Manitoba. RED ROOT (Ceanothus), a genus of deciduous shrubs of the natural order Rhamnacex. The common red root of North America (C. americanus), which abounds from Canada to Florida, is a shrub of two to four feet high, with beautiful thyrsi of numerous small white flowers. It is sometimes called New Jersey tea, an infusion of its leaves being sometimes used as tea. It serves also as an astringent, and for dyeing wool of a cinnamon color. A Mexican species has blue flowers, and a California kind is used for evergreen hedges.