Herba Cana - Northeastern Illinois University

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© 2004 by CRC Press 500 Florida Ethnobotany In the southwestern United States and probably elsewhere in its range, Phragmites stems have been used to make many items. One of the most frequent applications before indigenous people obtained guns was as shafts of arrows and atlatl darts. There are records of at least the Apache, Aztecs, Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Kawaiisu, Klamath, Navajo, Paiute, and Tewa making arrows from them (Elmore 1944, Ebeling 1986, Mabberley 1997). Some other uses include making baskets, boats, containers, flutes, nets, pipes (or ‘‘cigarettes’’), pipe stems, prayer sticks, roofing, screens, thatching, and weaving rods (Kearney and Peebles 1951, Felger and Moser 1985, Ebeling 1986, Mabberley 1997, Hodgson 2001). Both stems and leaves were used to make cordage for nets and snares (Ebeling 1986). We can still purchase Phragmites reed ‘‘screens’’ to use as visual barriers along fences and other areas. In addition, the species is used commercially to make paper, cellophane, cardboard, synthetic textiles, fiberboard, fuel, alcohol, insulation, and fertilizer (Hocking 1997). The Seminoles probably also used reed much as they did cane (see Arundinaria). In the southeast, only the Seminoles are recorded as using Phragmites as medicine. These people used the hollow stems as a tube to blow medicine into wounds or onto skin problems, and even as a medication for boils and carbuncles (Sturtevant 1955). Similarly, the Navajo use lók’aa’ for stomach and skin problems (Mayes and Lacy 1989). The Apache made a medicine to treat diarrhea and other digestive problems (Moerman 1998). The Blackfoot made a decoction of the whole plant as an emetic. The Iroquois mixed Phragmites with bottle-brush grass (Elymus hystrix) to make ‘‘corn medicine,’’ a mixture in which they soaked corn kernels before planting them. In the Bahamas and Cuba, a root decoction of Phragmites is taken as a diuretic and antiseptic. On North Caicos the root is boiled with Chiococca alba to relieve ‘‘pain in the back’’ (kidneys) (Roig 1945, Morton 1981). Human alterations of landscapes have resulted in major changes in reed abundance. Formerly, when the land was wetter, people in the southwestern part of the United States and nearby Mexico named places because of the stands of Phragmites. Some examples include Carrizo, Carrizo Butte, Carrizo Mountains, Carrizo Ridge, and Carrizo Wash (Apache County, Arizona), Carrizo Creek (Catron County, New Mexico), Carrizozo (Lincoln County, New Mexico), Xapij an Hax (reedgrass inside water), and Hax Cáail or Pozo Carrizo (Kino Bay, Sonora). Now, drainage has resulted in near disappearance of the species. The alternate situation applies in the eastern states where the apomictic form has become a weed covering vast areas in monocultures. ‘‘Reed’’ in woodwinds is a slightly different meaning from all the others. There, a segment of the stem is removed and thinned so that air moving over it in the confined space of the instrument will cause it to vibrate. Sounds from that vibration are amplified by the remainder of the instrument to produce the music. Occasionally, the reeds are made of Arundo donax, another reed; however, the preferred ‘‘reed’’ is from Phragmites. No other plant produces sounds as pleasing as it, and synthetic products are usually not acceptable to the musicians who demand excellence in sounds. An ancient grass used to make Greek panpipes is still the best. Phryma (Derivation unknown; possibly from Greek phryna, a toad) Phryma leptostachya. From Britton and Brown 1898. Phryma leptostachya (slender-spiked; an old generic name) [American] lopseed (‘‘lop,’’ to hang loosely, was in English by 1578; ‘‘lopseed’’ was recorded in a common name by 1850) Apparently, the first that Europeans learned of these herbs was from Jan Gronovius’s Flora Virginica. In 1739, he called the plants Verbena racemosa simplicissimo, flores sessilibus, calycibus fructus reflexis racemoque appressis (A verbena with a simple raceme, flowers sessile, the fruiting calyx reflexed and appressed to the raceme). In 1740, Adrian van Royen used the same phrase to describe plants growing in the
© 2004 by CRC Press The Ethnobotany 501 Netherlands. Not long afterward, in 1751, Linnaeus coined the generic name Phryma and left everyone wondering on what he based the name. Species Plantarum (Linnaeus [1753] 1957) states simply, ‘‘Habitat in America septentrionalis’’ (Grows in North America). That problematic etymology of the generic name set the stage for trying to understand the relationships of these plants. They have been put in their own family, the Phrymaceae, or the Verbenaceae. The most recent molecular genetic studies support Phryma being removed from the other families and recognized as a distinct lineage (Wagstaff and Olmstead 1997). Although Linnaeus did not know it when he named the herbs, the genus is disjunct between Asia and North America. There has been a tendency to call the Old World plants a different species from the American, but the differences are minor (Hara 1969). Since the late 1960s, most have considered them a single, bicentric species in the monotypic Phryma. In North America, the plants are considered native from New Brunswick to Manitoba, south to Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, and eastern Texas (Fernald 1950, Steyermark 1963, Barkley 1986, Jones and Coile 1988, Diggs et al. 1999). These plants are widespread and important medicines in Asia, but few records exist of their application in the Americas. The Ojibwa chewed roots or gargled a root decoction to relieve sore throat, and drank the decoction when they had rheumatism (Densmore 1928, Moerman 1998). Hocking (1997) noted that the leaves and roots are insecticidal and have been used to kill houseflies in Japan and China. Elsewhere in Asia, the plants are used to treat fevers, ulcers, ringworms, scabies, boils, carbuncles, and cancers (Hsu 1986, Foster and Duke 1990). The herbs contain phryumarol, a sterol (Hocking 1997). Phyla (João de Louriero, 1717 /1791, used Greek phyle, a tribe or clan, an allusion to the many flowers in tight heads) fog fruit (in use for P. nodiflora in the Americas by 1886; the old meaning of ‘‘fog’’ was for ‘‘grasses’’ that sprang up in fields immediately after the hay was harvested; that sense dates from the 14th century A.D.; the concept of moisture in the air did not appear until the 1500s, although it now precludes the older use); frog fruit (corruption of ‘‘fog fruit’’) Phyla lanceolata. Drawn by Vivian Frazier. From Correll and Correll 1972. Phyla lanceolata lance-leaf fog-fruit Phyla stoechadifolia (leaves resembling those of the mint Lavandula stoechas) ( /Lippia stochadifolia) azulejo (little blue one) epazotillo (little epazote, Chenopodium ambrosioides, Totonac, Veracruz) guia huace [quie huace] (guia, flower, huace, smell of roses or sweet fruit, Zapotec, Oaxaca) kabalyaxmik [cabalyaxnic] (kabal, small plant, ya’ax, green, nik, joined to, in other words, small plant that grows with the ya’ax che’, Ceiba pentandra, the green tree that supports the world; Maya, Yucatán) marsh phyla (a book name) orozús (literally, ‘‘juicy-root,’’ a name usually given to a legume, Belize) poleo [poley] (a mint resembling ‘‘yerbabuena’’ or Mentha, Puerto Rico) southern fog-fruit (Florida)
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