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© 2004 by CRC Press 532 Florida Ethnobotany 1st century A.D. selecting samples. Bending over, he gently snaps off the stems, and thinks that the bitter plants will produce polygalon (much milk). They will be useful to the farmer who had recently come to him for help renewing the flow of milk in his cow. Dioscorides tucks the plants gingerly into a small bag he has draped over his shoulder and walks on. Speakers of different Mediterranean languages called these plants their linguistic equivalents of milkwort (wort, plant) long before the Dutch herbalist Rembert Dodoens published the Latin name in 1554. Henry Lyte’s translation of Dodoens’s Dutch text on Polygala says that it ‘‘engendreth plentie of milk; therefore it is good to be used of nurses that lack milk.’’ Others following this idea include Italian poligala, Spanish hierba lechera (milk giving herb), Portuguese erva leiteira, and French latier (milk giver). Gaels also call them lus a’bhainne (milk herbs). In spite of these names and beliefs, there is no experimental evidence that the plant extracts increase milk flow. Europeans know the plants by other names. Norwegians call them bla˚fjaer (blue-flower). While not all their species have blue flowers, they retain the basic name and add modifiers, such as bitterbla˚fjaer (P. amarella) orstorrbla˚fjaer (storr, big, P. vulgaris). In Guernsey Polygala is herbe de paralysie, and it is used to treat or prevent paralysis or strokes. Gaelic speakers in Scotland call the herb saibann nam bansidh (fairy women’s soap). Indeed, many species contain saponins (soaplike compounds). The Germans call it Kreuzblume (cross-flower). One can see a resemblance (with considerable imagination) to a cross in the flowers. Many of the Florida species have common names that reflect their colorful flowers. Bachelor’s buttons, the least creative among these, was adopted from unrelated European plants (Centaurea cyanus, Asteraceae). Sometimes that name is applied to all the species, but there are more often modifiers, as in white bachelor’s-button (P. balduinii), bog bachelor’s-button (P. lutea), dwarf bachelor’s-button (P. nana), and yellow bachelor’s-button (P. rugelii). Some of the more intriguing common names for milkworts are given to P. cruciata (drum-heads) and P. pauciflora (gay-wings, bird on the wing, baby’s toes, baby’s feet, baby’s slippers, satin flower, Indian pink, maywing). However, the most curious names for Florida’s P. incarnata are procession-flower or Rogation-flower, both of which it shares with European P. vulgaris. Herbalist John Gerarde in 1597 explained these names by saying that the plants ‘‘flourish in the Crosse or Gang weeke, or Rogation weeke; of which floures the maidens which use in the countries to walk the Procession doe make themselves garlands and nosegaies, in English we may call it Crosse-floure, Rogation floure, and Milkewort, of their virtues in procuring milk in the breasts of nurses.’’ Rogation Sunday is the fifth Sunday after Easter, and it is followed by Rogation Week when church processions (or ‘‘gangs’’), led by a person carrying a cross, bless crops. This may be another pagan ritual incorporated into the Christian religion, because there is a word in Gaelic for the procession*/liodan. Milkworts, also known as candyweeds or candyroots (because of a licorice taste to the roots of some), are small herbs in North America and northern Europe, but in drier climates and within the tropics they may be shrubs or even trees (Mabberley 1997). Some species produce dyes, and one from tropical Africa (P. butyracea) yields a fiber. Many species around the world are used in medicines, although only one in North America has received much publicity. That northern species, P. seneca (snake-root, Seneca snakeroot), became famous as a snakebite remedy when the first Europeans arrived in the New World. Although its effectiveness in treating snakebite is doubtful, the species became popular for treating pleurisy, the most common ailment in colonial Virginia (Coffey 1993). Even William Byrd (1674 /1744), one of the surveyors of the line between North Carolina and Virginia, used it to treat gout in a member of his party in early 1728 (Byrd [1728] 1980). Snake-root contains the glucoside senegin (a saponin), polygalic acid, resin, methyl salicylate, and fatty oils (Hocking 1997). Several of these make the plant potentially effective in medicines as an emetic, expectorant, cathartic, diuretic, antispasmodic, and sweat inducer, to regulate menses, for colds, and against croup, pleurisy, rheumatism, heart troubles, convulsions, and coughs, and as a poultice against swelling. The presence of methyl salicylate also supports its use against some of these maladies. This chemical is more familiar under the name of ‘‘wintergreen’’ and it has long been used in medicine and flavorings. Florida’s P. boykinii shares methyl salicylate with others, and has been used in Mexico in a cold water infusion to correct dizziness (Hocking 1997). Similarly, Seminoles told Sheehan in 1919 that it was a medicine for treating vertigo (von Reis and Lipp 1982). Pollen of the genus has been found in the pre- Columbian deposits at the Glades site of Fort Center on the western side of Lake Okeechobee (Hogan 1978). The Seminoles have different names for P. rugelii and related species, but they seem to use each one as a generic term for several species. The species has had religious significance in Florida for a long time, and this relationship is indicated by the Micco-
© 2004 by CRC Press The Ethnobotany 533 sukee name sápiyâ:bî or sápiyî (resembling the mythical plant ‘‘sápiyi’’) (Sturtevant 1955). Snow and Stans (2001) used svpeyv as the Creek name. A more detailed explanation of svpeyv is given by Martin and Mauldin (2000). They wrote that this is the name of ‘‘a plant whose root is used as a charm,’’ basing their comment on some notes made by Mary R. Haas ca. 1940. For the second meaning, they added, ‘‘a charm (once used for hunting, but now used to attract a suitor).’’ Sturtevant (1955) wrote that the Creeks called Polygala, regardless of the species, hi:lamásî (hele, medicine, em, its, vse, tea, Creek). He was told that they used both P. lutea and P. rugelii, but that the former was better. His informants used Polygala for ‘‘Sapiyi Sickness’’ (heart palpitations, yellow skin, body swelling, shortness of breath), ‘‘Chronic Sickness,’’ snakebite, birth medicine, and sorcery. Snow and Stans (2001) added the Creek names svpeyv hvlwat (svpeyv, polygala, hvlwv, high, -at, the one that is), and svpeyv lopockuce (svpeyv, polygala, lopocke, small, uce, small), plus the Mikasuki names wootaacheeke em oekekche (properly wootaacheeke em alekche, emetic medicine; from wootaach-, make vomit, -eeke, thing that, i.e., emetic, em, its, alekche, medicine), tofoome chayhe (chayhe, tall, Mikasuki; the first word may be cognate with Creek eto-home, bitter wood), and shapeye peshkooshka (small polygala). Bennett (1997) was told the Mikasuki name eeye mashe (eeye, foot, em, its, ashe, tea). In the ‘‘Plant Identification Chart for Creek Speakers,’’ Snow and Stans (2001) list P. grandiflora, P. lutea, and P. rugelii only under svpeyv and wootaacheeke em oekekche. There is apparently more about identification and use of the genus than the simple version given by Sturtevant (1955) indicates. Organisms that have uses older than cultural memory always have long and complex associations with people. Snow and Stans (2001) illustrate P. grandiflora in their Plate 24, and call it svpeyv, with the English names ‘‘small one’’ and ‘‘candy root.’’ Snow wrote, ‘‘You find this plant in an open place on dry or damp land. Get four whole plants with the root attached. The thin stem is about a foot tall with small purple flowers, and the root is white. You use svpeyv for treatment to clean the body and to vomit. It is used in ‘on the wagon medicine’ as well.’’ In keeping with Snow’s comment that svpeyv cleans the body, large doses of P. rugelii are reported to act as a strong laxative. The Choctaw used P. lutea (bog bachelor’s-button, candyweed, wild bachelor’s-button), calling it kwonokashaipsa [kwonokasha ipsa] (kowaanakaasha, little people, impa, eat it), as a poultice to treat swelling by infusing dried blossoms in hot water (Bushnell 1909). Florida’s other species with a recorded use is P. polygama. As with several species, it has been used to treat coughs. Both probably contain the saponin wintergreen. John K. Small (1869 /1938), the botanist from New York Botanical Garden who explored Florida during his winter breaks, was the first to recognize one endemic species as distinct. He called that herb P. arenicola in 1905. In the 1970s, Robert R. Smith and Daniel B. Ward at the University of Florida realized that, because of a legal technicality, the plants needed a new name. They commemorated this New Yorker’s keen observations by dubbing the plants Polygala smallii. Urbanization in southern Florida has pushed P. smallii to the edge of extinction. The species was proposed for the Federal Endangered Plant List, and it became one of the first from the region to be listed in 1985. Because no one knew much about the plants, or why they were so restricted, several studies were initiated. Pamela Krauss, while at Florida Atlantic University, discovered by the early 1980s that the species was restricted to small sandy spots in rockland pine flatwoods in Miami-Dade County. Apparently, the Broward County plants were extirpated by then. About the same time John Popenoe, then Director of Fairchild Tropical Garden, found the species in Martin County’s Jonathan Dickinson State Park. In the late 1990s George Gann rediscovered the plants in Martin and subsequently in nearby Palm Beach and St. Lucie Counties. Even these northern populations reproduce erratically, and studies for the Florida Native Plant Society by Christine Lockhart are producing population data that will help future management of this highly endangered Florida endemic. One of the aspects of its biology that is a contributor to its spotty distribution is its isolation in ‘‘pockets’’ of sand within pinelands. Another of those aspects may be dispersal by ants. Ant colonies have limited ranges, and that restricts where the seeds can be carried. To accomplish their dispersal, Polygala seeds have special ‘‘food-bodies’’ (elaisomes). Those tiny structures attract these small foraging insects. Ants carry the seeds back to their nests, eat the food, and then discard the seeds outside. The seeds, having been put in a rich garbage heap with plenty of open space and reduced competition, germinate and provide new colonies. Perhaps our disruption of native ants with pesticides and alien introduced ants is showing us the ‘‘ripple-effect’’ of disturbing one small segment of the web of life.
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