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© 2004 by CRC Press 552 Florida Ethnobotany Pterocaulon pycnostachyum. Drawn by P.N. Honychurch. looked more closely, he realized that there were two different species. One species grew in the southeastern states (North Carolina to Florida, west to Mississippi), and the other in Texas, eastern Mexico, and the West Indies. The species name virgatum had already been applied to the western species, so Michaux called the one in the southeast Conyza pycnostachya (pycno, thick, stachyo, spike, in reference to the flower cluster). Then, in 1823, Stephen Elliott moved the species to Pterocaulon to create the name used now, Pterocaulon pycnostachyum. Later, in 1836, Augustin-Pyramus de Candolle moved virgatum to create the name Pterocaulon virgatum for the western species. Both species have long been called blackroot or Indian blackroot in the United States, but they sometimes also are called rabbit tobacco. The last name is more often applied to members of Gnaphalium, the genus where Linnaeus originally put these plants. Our word tobacco came into English from Spanish tabaco, first used in the 1500s but taken from a Taino word in Hispaniola. The modifier ‘‘rabbit’’ is equivalent to saying ‘‘wild’’ to distinguish it from the cultivated Nicotiana. Comparison with Nicotiana results from Pterocaulon leaves being smoked or chewed either as a medicine or simply because tobacco was not available. The western species, P. virgatum, has a richer history of common names than the eastern plants, surely because that species is geographically spread from Texas to Argentina, and in the Caribbean. It too is called blackroot or Indian tobacco in the United States. However, Jamaicans call it golden cudweed. That Jamaican name is based on the Old English cwidu or cudu, which is sometimes also rendered quid. Those words date from about A.D. 1000 and refer to any plant substance that is held in the mouth and masticated, but not swallowed. Typically, after the introduction of Nicotiana into the Old World, the ‘‘cud’’ has been synonymous with that species. However, the practice of chewing a cud is much older in Europe than knowledge of the American Nicotiana. Other people were more impressed with the looks of the aboveground parts of these plants. Due to the white pubescence, people call them branqueja (the white one, Brazil), calça de velho (old man’s shoes, Brazil), or oreille mouton (sheep’s ear, Martinique, Dominique). Pterocaulon is called langue à vache femelle (female cow’s tongue, Martinique, Dominique) to distinguish it from langue à vache, which is Elephantopus. Because the plants retain their shape and color when dried, they are also called siempreviva (everlasting, Cuba). References to where one may find the plants are in some names*/alecrim das paredes (rosemary of the walls, Brazil), travesera de loma (crosser of hills, Cuba), and vela de sabana (savana candle, Dominican Republic). Allusions to the potent chemicals contained in the herbs are barbasco [verbasco] (a fish poison, Brazil) and cura nacío (cures at birth, Dominican Republic). The eastern P. pycnostachyum has names only in English and in two Seminole languages. Sturtevant (1955) found literature with various spellings of these names back to the 1930s, and then wrote that Mikasuki picikcalah kayikcî meant ‘‘blood saver medicine.’’ That is the same sense as pechekche alahke aayek that the modern Mikasuki speakers translate more exactly (pechekche, blood, alahké, leftover, ayekche, medicine). ‘‘Blood medicine’’ is the Mikasuki name pechekche emayekche recorded by Snow and Stans (2001). Williams ([1837] 1962) may have been the first person to record that this plant was used by the Seminoles. He wrote that it was ‘‘[t]he famous Indian remedy for pulmonary disorders.’’ Sturtevant (1955) later recorded that the Seminoles used these plants widely in medicines where there was a real or perceived problem with the blood. The plant was used to treat chronic sickness, coughs and colds, ‘‘Cow Creek Sickness,’’ fever, menstrual difficulties, ‘‘Otter Sickness,’’ and was used in childbirth. Modern Seminoles
© 2004 by CRC Press The Ethnobotany 553 who recall the old medicines still note similar uses (Snow and Stans 2001). Chemical studies of several Pterocaulon species show that the plants contain a variety of coumarins (Debenedetti et al. 1981, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996. 1997, 1998, 1999, Magalhaes et al. 1981, 1989, Boeykens et al. 1994, Vilegas et al. 1995, MacLeod and Rasmussen 1999, Palacios 1999, Vera et al. 2001). Coumarins have a long history of use as a blood anticoagulant (Lewis and Elvin-Lewis 1977). Coumarins are lactones, which are vitamin K antagonists, and they act as indirect anticoagulants with a delayed effect. Following oral ingestion, absorption, and metabolism in the liver, chemical action results from a reduction in synthesis of prothrombin, a plasma protein produced in the liver in the presence of vitamin K. Prothrombin is converted into thrombin during the clotting of blood. Alterations of these pathways change the ability of blood to clot, and noticing this change is surely partly what led people to use these plants. Clotting alteration would have been the obvious result when people used Pterocaulon as abortives and styptics, and to relieve menstrual difficulties (Sturtevant 1955, Uphof 1968, Morton 1974). Coumarins and their derivatives are not the only bioactive chemicals in Pterocaulon. Other studies show that the plants contain caffeolyquinic acids (Martino et al. 1979), thiophene acetylenes and flavonols (Bohlmann et al. 1981), flavonoids (Semple et al. 1998, 1999), flavanones, and caryophyllene (MacLeod and Rasmussen 1999). These chemicals are antioxidant, prooxidant (Desmarchelier et al. 1997), and antiviral (Semple et al. 1998, 1999). Thus, the mixture of chemicals extracted into medicines made from Pterocaulon would be effective against colds and asthma. Sturtevant (1955) also recorded the Creek name for these plants, and Snow and Stans (2001) confirm that it is still used. In Creek, the plants are yvnvsv heleswv [yanasa hiliswâ] (yvnvsv, buffalo, heleswv, medicine). The allusion to a buffalo may seem odd in the modern world largely devoid of them. However, Bison bison historically ranged into the woodlands of the eastern United States well within the area occupied by the Creeks and ancestors of the Miccosukees (cf. Caras 1967). The Seminoles also sometimes used blackroot in the busk (Capron 1953), a term derived from their word posketv [poskita] (to fast, Creek). The busk, or Green Corn Ceremony, involves a 4-day festival, sometimes with 1 to 3 preliminary days added. The event occurs between late April and mid-July. Special busk grounds are prepared distant from both Seminole and white settlements. During the evening of the third day, fires are rekindled with flint and steel in the old manner, and the sacred medicine bundle is opened. The contents of the medicine bundle are usually kept secret, but at least three outsiders in recent history have been permitted to examine it. Spoehr (1939), Capron (1953), and Sturtevant (1954) were each permitted to make notes on the contents of different medicine bundles. Each of the three found similarities and differences in the contents. Capron (1953) is the only one who found Pterocaulon in the bundle. Regardless of the exact contents of the medicine bundle, a variety of its plant contents (up to 20 plants) was used to brew the ayikctanahki (gathered medicine) or ayikctanahkco:bi (big gathered medicine), a critical beverage in the cleansing of the old year and preparation for the new. The only other record of use of Pterocaulon found from Florida was by Murphee (1965). She was told that people in the Panhandle used it to cure ‘‘teen age trouble’’ (illegitimate pregnancy). The genus contains 18 species in the warm parts of the Americas and southeastern Asia, reaching to Australia and New Caledonia (Cabrera and Ragonese 1978). Within its range, medicines are known to be made from it in the United States, Argentina (Vera et al. 2001), Brazil (Magalhaes et al. 1989), and Australia (Cribb and Cribb 1981, Semple et al. 1998, MacLeod and Rasmussen 1999). Perhaps not surprisingly, the aborigines of Australia also use the leaves as a tobacco substitute (Cribb and Cribb 1981). Nothing has been found to corroborate the inference, but maybe that is why Uphof (1968) said blackroot was a ‘‘stimulant’’ and Morton (1974) simply wrote that it was ‘‘narcotic.’’ Nothing about its chemistry suggests those impacts on users. Possibly the leaves are poor substitutes for Nicotiana. That might be why it was called ‘‘rabbit’’ tobacco. Either way, the common name conjures up the image of some pensive rabbit sitting on its haunches puffing on a pipe. Pycnanthemum (André Michaux created this name with Greek pycnos, dense, and anthemon, a flower, from the compact inflorescences) [American wild] basil (comparing the fragrance to the cultivated basil, Ocimum basilicum) Dickblume (dense flowers, German) mountain-mint (William Salmon included ‘‘mountain-mint’’ in 1671 in his Synopsis Medicina for what is now Clinopodium, with about 20 European species; the name later was shifted to the New World, and ‘‘mountain-mint’’ used for Pycnanthemum by 1861)
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