Herba Cana - Northeastern Illinois University

© 2004 by CRC Press
548 Florida Ethnobotany
by that common name in English, French (café
marron, Guadeloupe, Martinique), and Spanish in
the Caribbean (café cimarrón, wild coffee, Dominican
Republic), and Mexico (kapee ts’ohool, coffee herb,
Huastec, San Luis Potosí). There is an indirect
reference to the place of coffee origin in Africa with
palo moro (Moorish tree, Puerto Rico).
Although Psychotria is compared with coffee, it is
not used as a beverage. Several people have told me
they tried using Psychotria seeds as a substitute
‘‘coffee,’’ and got only bad taste and terrible headaches
from the mixture. However, these plants are
surely rich in tannins because mashed leaves are used
as a hemostat in Cuba (Roig 1945) and Puerto Rico
(Meléndez 1989). People in Barbados use a leaf
decoction as a febrifuge, as a remedy for colds, and
to treat stomach ailments. Leaves are combined with
other plants as ‘‘bush tea’’ (Goodding 1940 /1942),
which is used to treat a number of maladies. In keeping
with their multiple common names, the Huastecs of
Mexico have the most varied uses (Alcorn 1984). Like
Barbadians, the Huastecs use it to treat respiratory
problems, especially asthma. Other uses include application
to local swellings, such as swollen feet, and
erysipelas, sores, boils, tumors, and skin fungus. Does
bois laitelle (milk trees, Haiti) mean they use it with
milk?
Before Coffea was introduced into the New World,
people here used other names for the Psychotria. The
only indigenous name from within Florida is for P.
sulzneri. This hammock shrub is known by the
Seminoles as atópâ:bî (dogwood replica, Mikasuki).
According to Sturtevant’s (1955) informants, the plant
was ‘‘useless.’’ However, that name was derived from
Creek vtvphv [atápha] for dogwood (Cornus), and that
comparison with another species suggests a loss of
information (see Cornus). Every species of Cornus in
North America was used by people of essentially every
culture (Moerman 1998).
Florida’s other ‘‘wild coffee’’ (Florida, Bahamas,
Puerto Rico), P. nervosa, has a diversity of names
outside the state. Among those names is ipecacuana
ondulada mayor (big ipecacuanha with undulate
leaves) in Cuba (Roig 1945). That name was given
because the roots of P. nervosa were used as an emetic
as were those in the real ipecacuanha (P. ipecacuanha).
The comparison is instructive, because ipecacauanha
has a long history.
Between 1570 and 1600, the Portuguese priest
Manoel Tristão was in Brazil where he learned that the
Tupí people used the roots of a plant for treating
dysentery. When he returned to Europe, he told more
people about the plant, and French physicians finally
made it available in 1672 (Burkill 1966). We get our
English name ipecacuanha from the Tupí-speakers in
South America who called their medicinal plant
ipega’kwai (duck’s penis) or ipe-kaa-guéne (creeping
plant causing vomiting). The Florida plants have no
such imaginative names.
The only name other than ‘‘wild coffee’’ found in
Florida is Seminole balsamo, given by Morton (1981).
Since she gives no source for the name and it has not
been found elsewhere, the origin remains a mystery.
There is documentation for the name bálsamo in
Puerto Rico (Liogier and Martorell 1982, Meléndez
1989). Literally translated, the word means ‘‘balsam.’’
The probable sense of its use for ‘‘Seminole balsamo’’
is the now archaic meaning of ‘‘soothing.’’ Etymologically,
the word in Spanish and English has been
equivalent to ‘‘balm,’’ both having been derived from
Latin balsamum. The very name itself suggests a long
medical history*/unless Morton invented the name.
Some of the other designations indicating use as a
medicine are kidney bush (Caymans) and St. John’s
bush (Barbados). While perhaps not exactly ‘‘medical,’’
the name strong back (Caymans) suggests
enhanced stamina. Since the name implies two distinct
applications of strength, it was perhaps an important
plant. The interpretation most often given for such
names is improved sexual stamina. However, there was
an equally valuable application. Since our species
became bipedal, we have suffered from innumerable
back problems. In addition, as the name is endemic to
the Virgin Islands where the population is largely
derived from slaves, it takes on added meaning.
Individuals who could not do their share of work
during slaving times were not likely to survive long.
Medicines to ‘‘soothe’’ aching backs would have been
at a premium.
Other names show different perspectives. The
names penda (dangler, Dominican Republic) and
tapa camino (path coverer, Cuba) are surely related
to the locations where these shrubs grow and are
descriptive of their life-forms. Plateado (folded or
plaited, Cuba) is a literal equivalent of the specific
name of the technical synonym Psychotria undata.
That name was proposed by Nicolaus von Jacquin in
his book of 1798, Plantarum Rariorum Horti Caesarei
Schoenbrunnensis, and he too was taken with the
undulating pattern of the living leaves. For some
reason not understood, the plant is called huesito
[husito] (little bone) in Panama. If that were an
isolated case, it would be one thing, but that word is
applied to several Mexican species. None of the uses
suggests a bone medicine, so perhaps the name refers
to the wood.
Mayans call this shrub ya’ax-k’anan [anal, anal
xiv, sacxanal, canaan] (ya’ax, green, k’anan, necessary,
Yucatán), which is their same designation for Hamelia
patens. Both plants are important in Mayan religious