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© 2004 by CRC Press 544 Florida Ethnobotany Prunus umbellata (inflorescence branches resembling the ribs of an umbrella) [flatwoods, hog] plum [black] sloe [of the South] Like other youngsters in western Kentucky, I grew up nibbling the fruits of Prunus serotina. Although they are somewhat bitter, to a boy they were pleasant, and helped slake thirst during a hard day spent exploring the woods and fields. The more sinister side of the plants was completely unknown until a neighbor’s horse decided to sample a wilted branch. Although I was not yet a teenager, the vivid image of that dying animal is still burned in my memory. Later, I learned that it was the release of hydrocyanic or prussic acid (cyanide) that killed the poor creature. My friends and I became more cautious of the fruits, even though our reading about them revealed that they were a significant food to indigenous Americans, and the bark was one of their important medicines. Many years later I tried the fruits of capulín in Lima, Peru. All my agriculturist colleagues at the Centro Internacional de la Papa there could tell me was that the fruit was an important food in their country, and that it was una ceresa peruana (a Peruvian cherry). Eventually, I learned that the drupes I ate were simply a larger-fruited subspecies of what had been a part of my childhood diet. Some 17 of the more than 200 species of Prunus grow in Europe (Mabberley 1997). Thus, Europeans brought a variety of common names into the languages they introduced into the New World. As an example, some names of Old World Prunus in Spanish are albaricoque (for P. armeniaca, the apricot), cerezo de monte (for P. avium, the wild-cherry), ciruelo (for P. /domestica, the plum), almendro (for P. dulcis, the almond), and melocoton (for P. persica, the peach). A similar list could be given for other European languages. When explorers and immigrants arrived in the New World, they found indigenous people using a number of native species. Seven of those grow in Florida; four native species are called ‘‘plums’’ and three are ‘‘cherries.’’ Originally, the name ‘‘plum’’ meant only P. /domestica and dates in English to about A.D. 700. That word was derived from Old Low German pluma, which came from Latin prunus. The same Latin word or its alternate declension prunum also gave us the English word ‘‘prune’’ about A.D. 1345, and its cognate prugna in Italian. In the 1700s and 1800s, some considered plums to be genus Cerasus, while cherries were Padus. However, even that nomenclature is confused because the Greeks used the word kerasos for the Old World bird-cherry Prunus avium. Theo- phrastus (372 /287 B.C.) used Padus (from Greek pados or pedos) for a cherry whose timber was used for axles. According to historic usage, plums are usually larger than cherries, have a bloom or whitish wax on the skin, a somewhat flat pointed stone, and sweet pulp (OED 1971, Davidson 1999). Traditionally, a ‘‘cherry’’ has smaller fruits, no bloom on the skin, a rounded stone, and the pulp may be sweet, sour, or even bitter. The basis of the concept for ‘‘cherry’’ is P. avium or P. cerasus. However, in practice, usage breaks down, and P. angustifolia is called both a plum and a cherry. Prunus angustifolia, P. americana, P. geniculata, and P. umbellata are ‘‘plums’’; alternately, P. caroliniana, P. myrtifolia, and P. serotina are ‘‘cherries.’’ Although Cortez’s conquistadores had eaten Prunus in Mexico in 1519, it was the mid-1700s before the Florida species were named. Linnaeus knew only P. virginiana when he published Species Plantarum in 1753, and it had been discussed by Leonard Plukenet in 1696, Mark Catesby in 1731 /1732, and J.F. Gronovius in 1739 /1743. However, Prunus was first recorded in what today is the United States by the de Soto expedition. The Spanish found the plants near what is now New Madrid, Missouri, in 1540 or 1541, and noted that the Chickasaw were using them for food (Hedrick 1919). Those plums were surely what Varner and Varner translated as ‘‘dried fruit’’ from Garcilasco De La Vega ([1605] 1962). André Michaux tried to commemorate that important association between that tribe and the fruits by calling the trees P. chicasa in 1802, but Humphery Marshall had already named them P. angustifolia in 1785. Not only did the people along the Mississippi eat the fruits, the Ozark Bluff- Dwellers of Arkansas used the seeds to make beads (Gilmore 1931). Prunus angustifolia grows from Florida through the eastern two thirds of Texas, and north to Missouri, Kentucky, and east to New Jersey and Maryland. Fernald (1950) said that it occurred elsewhere, ‘‘as a relic of cultivation.’’ Bartram ([1791] 1958) never saw them in the wild but always in deserted Creek villages. He speculated, ‘‘I suppose it to have been brought from the S.W. beyond the Mississippi, by the Chicasaws.’’ Maybe that comment is why Harrar and Harrar (1946) and Little (1979) thought that the original range of P. angustifolia might have been central Texas and Oklahoma, but that the trees were early and widely spread by indigenous tribes. The fruits were favored by the Chickasaws as noted by the common name. Diggs et al. (1999) record that ‘‘Native Americans’’ dried fruits on hot rocks so they could be stored for future use. Otherwise, Moer-
© 2004 by CRC Press The Ethnobotany 545 man (1998) listed only the Comanche as using the fruits as food, both fresh and dried. Yanovsky (1936) and Hudson (1976) wrote that all southeastern tribes ate plums of all kinds. Prunus americana ranges from Florida to northern Arizona and New Mexico, north to Utah and Wyoming, and east through Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New York, southern Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba (Fernald 1950, Kearney and Peebles 1951). Little (1979) said the American plum grows in the mountains of northern Mexico, but that appears to be a confusion with P. mexicana (Standley 1920 /1926). Fruits of P. americana were used as food by at least the Apache, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Creeks, Crow, Dakota, Iroquois, Isleta, Kiowa, Meskwaki, Ojibwa, Omaha, Osage, Pawnee, Ponca, and Winnebago (Gilmore 1919, Hunter [1823] 1973, Densmore 1928, Yanovsky 1936, Sturtevant 1955, Moerman 1998). Bundles of the flexible twigs were used as brooms throughout the Missouri River region, and the Omaha planted their beans, corn, and squash when kande came into bloom (Gilmore 1919). Isleta, Navajo, and Ojibwa made dyes from the bark, producing yellow or red, depending on the other plants mixed and mordants (Moerman 1998). Several tribes used P. americana in medicine (Moerman 1998). The Cherokee made a cough syrup of the bark, and an infusion for kidney and bladder problems (Hamel and Chiltoskey 1975). The Cheyenne applied the mashed fruits to mouth diseases, and the Meskwaki used the root bark. The Mohegan made an infusion of twigs to treat asthma. The Omaha boiled root bark and applied it to skin abrasions (Gilmore 1919). The Ojibwa made a decoction of the roots for intestinal worms and put a decoction of the bark on cuts and wounds as a disinfectant (Densmore 1928); they also used the rootlets in a remedy for diarrhea. The Rappahannock used the red plum in an undisclosed medicine. The last southeastern plum to be named was P. geniculata. Roland M. Harper (1878 /1966) described that species from Lake County in 1911, and it is so rare that it has been considered federally endangered since 1987 (Ward 1979, Coile 2000, Chafin 2001). Little (1979) did not even discuss the name. This small plum has fruits to about 2 cm wide and grows in the heart of what was Timucua territory before the arrival of the Europeans. Moerman (1998) does not list P. myrtifolia as used by native people, and with its limited distribution in Miami-Dade County, that is not surprising. Like other species in the genus, this one contains hydrocyanic glycosides. Bark, leaves, and twigs are used fresh for asthma and cough in Cuba (Roig 1945). In Hispaniola and Puerto Rico the trunks are used for electric line posts, in rural construction, and in cabinetwork (Liogier 1974, Little et al. 1974). The bark has a strong smell of almonds and is used to clean false teeth (Liogier 1974). Stephen Elliott named P. umbellata, called the ‘‘sloe of the South’’ because of its black fruits. At the time he named the plum, Elliott (1821) recorded that people were using the fruits in preserves. When they are available, they are preferred because they are unusually rich in pectin (Harrar and Harrar 1946). I found no records that they were used as a substitute for the European sloe (P. spinosa), but it would be a safe bet that they were. The laurel-cherry (P. caroliniana) has the second most restricted range of the species, growing on the coastal plain from southeastern North Carolina to central Florida, west to eastern Texas (Little 1979; Diggs et al. 1999). Alabama people boiled the inner bark to make a red dye used to color split cane woven into baskets. Porcher (1863) was enthusiastic about these plants during the Civil War but largely as an ornamental. He wrote: ‘‘This tree, the flowers of which are much frequented by bees, grows abundantly on the sea-coast of our states, and is certainly one of the most beautiful and manageable evergreens that we possess. It can be cut into any shape, and is of a most attractive green color. It forms an impervious hedge, and grows rapidly.’’ About its potential as medicine, Porcher continued: ‘‘The black, oval berries contain an abundance of Prussic acid, as does the whole tree; but I do not know of any use to which it is applied. Dr. Thompson has found great use from Prussic acid, largely diluted, as a local application in impetigo.’’ Hocking (1997) added that the leaves and bark contain prulaurasin, which hydrolyzes to racemic mandelonitrile and glucose and releases hydrogen cyanide. As with all members of the genus, laurelcherry may be fatal to stock if browsed in quantity (Harrar and Harrar 1946). Wild black-cherry (P. serotina) grows from Florida to Texas and southern Arizona, south through Mexico (Baja California Sur, Sonora east to Tamaulipas, south to Oaxaca and Chiapas), Guatemala, and north to North Dakota and Minnesota, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, southern Quebec, and southern Ontario (Fernald 1950, Little 1979). The Mexican and tropical American plants are usually segregated into P. serotina ssp. capuli (Felger et al. 2001), formerly recognized as a distinct species. Fruits from this subspecies have long been made into alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, and they are eaten fresh and preserved throughout the Americas (Felger et al. 2001). The cherry now called ssp. capuli was first noted in Mexico by Hernándo Cortez’s men in 1519 when the
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