Herba Cana - Northeastern Illinois University

© 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)