Herba Cana - Northeastern Illinois University

More documents

Recommendations

Info

© 2004 by CRC Press 508 Florida Ethnobotany of that was left by Mark Catesby (1731, 1:24). He wrote of the bird we now call the mourning dove (Zenaida macroura), ‘‘They feed much on the Berries of Poke, i.e., Blitum Virginianum, which are poison.’’ Common names crow-berry and pigeon berry also note that birds feed with impunity on the fruits. Strained juice of ripe fruits may, however, be used to color food, when carefully separated from the poisonous seeds (Morton 1968b). Several groups used the red-purple fruits as dyes (Moerman 1998), and use in coloring is how the herb got its name. The association of ‘‘poke’’ with Phytolacca dates from the first English colonists sent in the late 1500s by Sir Walter Raleigh to the Virginia coast. There they found Algonquian-speaking people referring to a number of plants as pakkan. That word became ‘‘puccoon’’ for Lachnanthes, Lithospermum, and Sanguinaria. The fourth one, Phytolacca, became ‘‘poke,’’ although based on the same root. The color is from the betacyan pigment caryophylline (Nellis 1997). Juice of the berries was also used in coloring wines (Nellis 1997), but Porcher (1863) reported that practice was outlawed in Europe. He wrote, ‘‘The French and Portuguese mixed it with their wine, to give it color, and this was prohibited by royal ordinance of Louis XIV, ‘on pain of death, as it injured the flavor!’’’ Juice was also made into ink. Porcher (1863) wrote, ‘‘With alum to fix the color, I have used the juice of the pokeberry as a red ink. The directions to the printer for this volume were written with this; before adding alum I found that the red color was fugitive. I consider it, prepared as above, an excellent substitute for carmine ink.’’ The first records of Florida Glades people using Phytolacca were the pre-Columbian pollen samples studied by Hogan (1978). How Glades people used the plant is unknown, but they probably used it in the same ways as others in the United States. Yanovsky (1936), Sylestine et al. (1993), and Moerman (1998) recorded that the Alabama, Cherokee, Delaware, Iroquois, Mahuna, Micmac, Mohegan, Rappahannock, and Seminoles used the plants as medicine. More indigenous groups probably shared the custom. Sturtevant (1955) found the Seminoles using the berries as an analgesic, especially for rheumatism. The Cherokee and Delaware used the berries exactly like the Seminoles, but the Iroquois and Rappahannock treated that problem with different preparations of the herbs (Hamel and Chiltoskey 1975, Moerman 1998). The Alabama still make a decoction of the leaves as an emetic and formerly used the berries in making a medicinal whiskey (Sylestine et al. 1993). Other tribes and European settlers used various plant parts as emetics, expectorants, cathartics, and poultices on sores (Porcher 1863, Millspaugh 1892, Foster and Duke 1990). Root tea from the herb was still in use to cure ‘‘ground itch’’ in the Panhandle when Murphee (1965) talked with people there. Ingestion of seeds, leaves, or other parts is especially dangerous because of the toxins, although small quantities are not obviously immediately poisonous for most people (Lewis and Elvin-Lewis 1977, Foster and Duke 1990, Nellis 1997). Among the toxic chemicals are the alkaloid phytolaccin and the triterpene saponins phytolaccagenin and phytolaccatoxin. The latter is similar to cicutoxin of water hemlock (see Cicuta). Among the poisons are proteinaceous mitogens that produce blood cell abnormalities when ingested or absorbed through the skin (Foster and Duke 1990, Nellis 1997). Many other species of Phytolacca are used, including the widespread P. icosandra (Morton 1981), for which the U.S. species was formerly confused. That plant is called by the Zapotec of Oaxaca, biaa or piaa, soap plant (Reko 1945). The chemical that led to use as soap also kills snails (Nellis 1997). Howard (1984) found that older Seminoles in Oklahoma used the plant to predict the next growing season. He was told that, shortly before New Year, a person would go out to the Phytolacca patch and clean out the dead growth so that only the roots were left. On New Year’s Day, they returned to inspect the roots. If there were new young leaves, it meant a good growing season. Picramnia (Named by Olaf Swartz with Greek pikros, bitter, amnion, the membrane around the fetus, in reference to the bark) Picramnia pentandra (five anthers) aguedita (little ague, ultimately derived from Latin [febris] acutus, referring to malaria, Cuba, Dominican Republic) bitter-bush [root] (Bahamas, Puerto Rico) bois montagnes [moudongue, Madame] ([lady] mountain bush, Guadeloupe, Martinique) bois poisson (fish bush, Haiti, Guadeloupe); bois sardine (sardine bush, Haiti) café marrón (wild coffee, Dominican Republic) fwenn (possibly from foin, hay, Haiti) graines dorées (golden grains, Guadeloupe) guarema (probably Taino, Puerto Rico) hueso (bone, Puerto Rico) ojo [palo] de peje [pez] (fish eye [tree], Dominican Republic)
© 2004 by CRC Press The Ethnobotany 509 Picramnia pentandra. (Left). a. Branch with pistillate inflorescences. b. Staminate flower, side view. c. Staminate flower, longitudinally dissected. d. Floral diagram of staminate flower. e. Pistillate flower, side view. f. Pistillate flower, longitudinally dissected. g. Floral diagrams of pistillate flower. (Right). a. Branch with fruit. b. Serial buds in leaf axil. c. Leaf with opposite leaflets. d. Leaf with alternate leaflets. e. Fruits, complete and transversely dissected, showing variation in seed numbers. Drawn by Priscilla Fawcett. Correll and Correll 1982. quina [quinina] de la tierra [del país] (wild quinine, Cuba) snake-root [snake-stick, snake-wood] (Bahamas) vaillant garçon (strong waiter, Haiti) Olaf Swartz gave us both the genus and species names for these trees in the late 1700s. He founded the genus on plants from Jamaica, and P. pentandra he discovered on Montserrat in the Lesser Antilles. Today the genus contains 45 species, all confined to tropical America (Mabberley 1997). As suggested by the references to ague and quinine in the common names, this is a venerable remedy for fevers, malarial and otherwise (Roig 1945, Liogier 1974, Ayensu 1981, Morton 1981, Beauvoir et al. 2001). Throughout the Caribbean, the tree is used as a tonic and febrifuge (leaves, roots, bark), and against diarrhea. Roots are boiled with Chiococca alba and the decoction used to alleviate gas and menstrual cramps. That tea is used against colds and tuberculosis, and to increase the appetite (Roig 1945, Ayensu 1981). In Hispaniola, the wood is rarely used, but a red dye is extracted from the flowers (Liogier 1974). Haitians consider a decoction made from leaves and bark effective against fever, indigestion, dysentery, intestinal worms, and anorexia (Beauvoir et al. 2001). Caribs on Dominica soak the wood chips to make a bitter drink to alleviate appetite loss. Sap from the bark is put on lesions from yaws (framboesia) (Hodge and Taylor 1957). Among the Warao of Guyana, it is used to ‘‘bitter the blood’’ (Reinders 1993). Pilea (John Lindley named this with Latin pileus, cap or hat; he thought the sepals of pistillate flowers covering the achene resembled the ‘‘felt caps’’ used by Romans) Pilea microphylla (small-leaved) alfombra (carpet, Venezuela) artillery plant (from the way it ‘‘shoots’’ its seeds into nearby areas, Florida, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands); escopetilla (little shotgun, Venezuela); gunpowder plant (was it really used in manufacturing powder? or is this another allusion to ‘‘shooting’’ its seeds?, England); kanonneer-plant (Dutch Antilles) baby puzzle (Jamaica, Lesser Antilles); baby’s lace [lace plant] (Bahamas, Jamaica, Lesser Antilles, Belize) beldroega (derived from Arabic burd(u)lagá, usually applied now to Portulaca, Brazil) botisuelo (ground cover, Hispaniola) brilhantina (shiny one, Brazil) dentelle [petite dentelles, tidentelles] (little tooth [teeth], Hispaniola)
Page 1 and 2: © 2004 by CRC Press Packera/Seneci
Page 3 and 4: © 2004 by CRC Press The Ethnobotan
Page 31: © 2004 by CRC Press The Ethnobotan

Herba Cana - Northeastern Illinois University

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?