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© 2004 by CRC Press 546 Florida Ethnobotany fruits were an important food for Spanish soldiers during the siege of Mexico City (Standley and Steyermark 1946). Francisco Ximémez said in 1615 that the fruits ‘‘no son nada inferiores a nuestras cerezas’’ (are not inferior to our cherries). Among the tribes in the United States, black-cherry fruits were used as food by the Cherokee, Iroquois, Menomini, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi (Smith 1933, Moerman 1998). Fernald et al. (1958) noted that indigenous people first pounded dried fruits (including pits) and then leached out the poisonous chemicals before using them in foods. An alternate view is that, once pounded, the poisons volatilize and fruits are rendered harmless (Dunmire and Tierney 1997). The Cherokee also used the wood for buildings, furniture, and carvings (Hamel and Chiltoskey 1975). Trees now are highly prized for the beautiful wood, which is used for furniture and cabinetmaking (Vines 1977, Diggs et al. 1999). Porcher (1863) was similarly complimentary, writing, ‘‘The wood of this tree is highly valuable, being compact, fine grained, and brilliant, and not liable to warp when perfectly seasoned. When chosen near the ramifications of the trunk, it rivals mahogany in the beauty of its curls.’’ Others since have used the wood for furniture, cabinets, printer’s blocks, veneer, patterns, panels, interior trim, handles, woodenware, toys, and scientific instruments (Vines 1977). Ximénez recorded that the Mexicans made a decoction of the bark that was used to cure ‘‘las cámaras de sangre’’ (blood clots). Also, the powder of the bark was used to clarify the vision, heal inflammations, moisten the tongue when it is dry from the heat or fever, and was used to cure various external sores and lesions (Martínez 1969). Ximémez considered the bark useful against malaria, but later reports considered it simply antipyretic (Martínez 1969). Tarahumara used the leaves and bark to catch fish and in a tea to treat whooping cough (Pennington 1958). They also added young leaves to their corn dish esquiate to increase spiciness. In the United States, the black-cherry is used as medicine by tribes throughout its range. Eastern tribes using it included the Catawba, Cherokee, Delaware, Illinois-Miami, Iroquois, Malecite, Micmac, Mohegan, Narragansett, Ojibwa, Osage, Penobscot, Potawatomi, Rappahannock, Shawnee, and Shinnecock (Smith 1933, Vogel 1970, Moerman 1998). People typically used the bark in tea or syrup for coughs, fever, cold, sore throats, diarrhea, lung ailments, bronchitis, pneumonia, and dyspepsia (Foster and Duke 1990, Moerman 1998, Duke et al. 2002). In addition to those uses, Vogel (1970) recorded the Cherokee using a bark decoction to treat measles, and the Missouri River tribes treating dropsy with it (Gilmore 1919). The Catawba mixed black-cherry bark with poplar and dogwood to treat expectant mothers (Vogel 1970). Like several other eastern tribes, the Illinois-Miami put root bark on infected gums (Vogel 1970). The Osage and Shawnee mixed black-cherry bark with Arisaema and snakewort to treat malaria (Vogel 1970). Among the non-indigenous people, Porcher (1863) gave a typical view when he wrote, ‘‘This is undoubtedly one of the most valuable of our indigenous plants.’’ He listed many maladies for which blackcherry had been used successfully, but like indigenous tribes considered it best against diarrhea, colds, and coughs. One of his favorite recipes was for ‘‘making ‘Cherry’ cordial by the Southern matrons in the lower country of South Carolina (Saint John’s)*/a most delectable drink at all times, but particularly valuable in the present emergency [Civil War]: Fill the vessel with cherries (not washed, if gathered clean). Cover with whisky. After several weeks pour off all the clear liquor and press the cherries through a sieve. Put into the juice thus pressed out five pints of brown sugar, and boil with syrup enough to sweeten the whole demijohn. Pour five pints of water on the thick part; boil and strain to make the syrup with the sugar.’’ Murphee (1965) found residents of the Panhandle still using the gum to make a remedy to relieve colds and croup. The fruits are still a flavoring for rum and brandy (Uphof 1968, Diggs et al. 1999). We partly owe the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition to choke-cherry bark (De Voto 1981). There were several occasions when the leaders were required to give remedies to individuals during the journey, and Captain Meriwether Lewis’s mother had been a skilled herbalist or ‘‘yarb doctor’’ (Vogel 1970). On 11 June 1805, between Maria’s River and the Great Falls on the Missouri River in Montana, Lewis became ill with abdominal cramps and fever. He had no medicine with him at the time so he decided to use choke-cherry. He brewed a strong decoction of small twigs and leaves and drank a pint at sunset. An hour later, he drank another pint. By 10 P.M., his cramps and fever were gone. Lewis had used the other choke-cherry (P. virginiana), but his technique was based on what he learned for using the eastern P. serotina. Pseudophoenix (Charles Sprague Sargent adapted H.A. Wendlands’s name pseudo, false, phoenix, genus of the date palm)
© 2004 by CRC Press The Ethnobotany 547 Pseudophoenix sargentii. a. Habit. b. Section of leaf midrib showing attachment of segments. c. Branchlet of inflorescence. d. Complete staminate flower (above) and longitudinally dissected staminate flower (below). e. Floral diagram of staminate flower. f. Complete perfect flower (above) and longitudinally dissected perfect flower (below). g. Floral diagram of perfect flower. h. Fruits. Drawn by Priscilla Fawcett. From Correll and Correll 1982. Pseudophoenix sargentii (named for Charles Sprague Sargent, 1841 /1927, director of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University) buccaneer palm (Bahamas) cathier (wine tree, Haiti); chacha [cacheo, caicha, casei, catey] (wine, Dominican Republic); palma de cacheo (wine palm, Dominican Republic) [Florida, Sargent’s] cherry palm (Florida, Puerto Rico) hog cabbage-palm [palmetto] (Bahamas) palma de Guinea (palm from Guinea, in the belief that the tree was from Africa, Cuba) palme marron (wild palm, Haiti); palmiste [à vin, mále] ([wine, male] palm, Haiti) These palms were not even discovered until the late 1800s. Four species are known in the genus, all endemic to the Caribbean (Mabberley 1997). In Hispaniola, people extract from the trunk a sweet liquid, which ferments into a drink called cacheo (Liogier 1974). In Dominica, Puerto Rico (Mona Island only), and Florida these trees are nearing extinction, perhaps due to overuse by humans (Coile 2000, James 2003). At one point the Hispaniolan P. eckmanii was thought to have been extinct since 1926 due to overharvesting for winemaking, but it has been relocated (Zona 2002). Psychotria: Wild Coffee (Based on Greek psyche, soul or life, plus iatria, medicine, or ‘‘to give life’’) Psychotria nervosa. Drawn by P.N. Honychurch. Imagine a world without coffee (Coffea arabica). There was no coffee in the Americas before the plant was introduced. Perhaps more surprising, there was no coffee in Europe when Columbus sailed in 1492. German physician Leonard Rauwolf (1535 /1596) was the first European to mention coffee after his trip to the Levant in 1573 /1576. Still, it was 99 years after the New World was discovered before much attention was paid to the beverage by Prosper Alpinus in 1591. About 200 years after Europeans settled in the New World, the French introduced Coffea arabica into Martinique in 1717, and the Dutch took it to Suriname shortly before that. The plants reached Jamaica in 1728 (Hedrick 1919). Before the comparison between cultivated coffee and wild plants could be made, Coffea had to be introduced into the New World. ‘‘Wild coffee’’ was first applied to its relative Faramea occidentalis by Philip Miller in 1730. That plant is also a member of the Rubiaceae, the family containing Coffea, along with what is now called wild coffee in Florida (Psychotria nervosa, P. sulzneri). When the name ‘‘wild coffee’’ was extended from Faramea to Psychotria is unknown. However, both genera are still known
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