Herba Cana - Northeastern Illinois University

© 2004 by CRC Press
486 Florida Ethnobotany
Pedicularis canadensis. a. Habit. b. Flower. c. Stamen.
d. Pistil. e. Fruit. Drawn by Vivian Frazier. From Correll
and Correll 1972.
[Canadian, common, early, early fern-leaf] lousewort
(‘‘louse’’ from a Teutonic base-word, as Old
English lús, with cognates in German Laus,
Danish and Swedish lus; first applied to Helleborus
in the 1540s by Leonard Fuchs, as
Laüszkraut, and later to Pedicularis by John
Gerarde in 1597); lousewort-foxglove
snaffles (presumably from ‘‘snuffles’’ or ‘‘sniffles,’’
a nasal catarrh, used since the 1820s; a local
name in England, usually applied to Rhinanthus,
also in the Orobanchaceae, formerly Scrophulariaceae;
cf. Coffey 1993)
Linnaeus included Sweden’s Pedicularis in his
Flora Oeconomica of [1749] 1979. When he published
Species Plantarum in 1753, all of its 14 species were
Old World plants. It was not until 1767 when Linnaeus
published Mantissa Plantarum that he gave us P.
canadensis, based on a collection by his student Peter
Kalm in Canada.
People of the northeastern United States had
known about this Pedicularis and other species for a
long time by the 1760s. About 1750, Jane Colden
wrote concerning what is now P. canadensis: ‘‘This
pedicularis is call’d by the country people Betony.
They make a Thee [tea] of the leaves, et use it for the
fever & ague et for sickness of the stomach’’ (Colden
in Coffey 1993). Settlers may have known about
medicines from Old World species, or they may have
learned from the indigenous tribes.
Moerman (1998) recorded use among eight tribes.
The Catawba made an infusion of roots to treat
stomach problems. The Cherokee treated dysentery,
coughs, and stomachaches with it (Hamel and Chiltoskey
1975). They and the Iroquois also rubbed an
infusion of roots on sores. The Iroquois treated
women’s menstrual problems, heart troubles, and
bleeding tuberculosis with the plants. The Menomini
used it as a love charm. The Meskwaki treated
external sores and tumors, and also made a love
medicine with it (King 1984). The Mohegans used an
infusion of leaves to induce abortion. The Ojibwa used
a root infusion to counteract anemia, to treat stomach
ulcers, sore throats, and as a love potion. The Forest
Potawatomi used the roots as a physic, while the
Prairie Potawatomi used the roots to reduce both
internal and external swelling (Smith 1933).
The Menomini and Potawatomi mixed lousewort
with other plants to fatten their horses. Both the
Cherokee and Iroquois ate the leaves and stems,
sometimes cooking and seasoning them with salt,
pepper, and butter (Yanovsky 1936).
In the 1750s some Europeans still believed that
cattle or sheep feeding where P. palustris grew became
covered with lice. By the 1900s, others had totally
changed views. Vickery (1993) recorded that people in
the Shetland Islands called P. vulgaris ‘‘bee-sookies’’
or ‘‘honey-sookies’’ because of its ‘‘nectar-filled
flower-tubes,’’ which children sucked for their sweet
flavor.
Pediomelum
(Per Axel Rydberg, 1860 /1931, segregated these
plants from Psoralea with Greek pedion, field, and
melon, an apple or fruit)
Pediomelum canescens (grayish-pubescent) ( /Psoralea
canescens)
buck-horn [buck-thorn] (‘‘buck-thorn’’ is now
applied to several genera, but was applied to
Rhamnus catharticus by Dodoens in 1554; the