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© 2004 by CRC Press 554 Florida Ethnobotany Pycnanthemum albescens. From Britton and Brown 1898. Pycnanthemum albescens (whitish) sak:fotó [iska fotó] (Koasati; probably cognate with Creek kvfockv [kafócka]; cf. Piloblephis) shinuktiɬ eli [shinuktelele] (shinuk, sand [probably originally shilup, ghost], tiɬ eli, to drive out, Choctaw; this name is a variant of the one used for Monarda punctata, which see) white [white-leaf] mountain-mint [whiteleaf mountainmint] Pycnanthemum flexuosum (curved alternately in opposite directions) Appalachian mountain-mint [mountainmint] dysentery weed My education about Pycnanthemum began when I was working with my undergraduate professor Gordon Hunter. He had become interested in the mints and hired me in the 1960s to collect and work with him on some of the problems in the western Kentucky species. I knew the plants in the Jackson Purchase region of Kentucky between the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers, but he had me look more closely at them. During the time that I was gathering specimens for him, I did not know that they had a long and complicated history of association with people. An early mention of what is now P. virginianum, published in 1697 by Paulo Boccone (1633 /1703/04), an Italian monk, physician, and professor at Padua, alludes to its medical application. He called the plants Serpentaria virginianus (Virginia snakeroot), and plants with that name were considered remedies for snakebite. That common name has been applied to numerous plants in different genera over the past few centuries (cf. also Aristolochia). In 1696, Leonard Plukenet discussed the same species, but he gave it the phrase name Clinopodium, pulegii angusto rididoque foliio, virginianum (Clinopodium, with narrow and rigid leaves like pulegium [pennyroyal], from Virginia). Both Jan Gronovius’s Flora Virginica and Linnaeus’s Hortus Cliffortianus followed Plukenet’s lead in thinking the herbs were a Clinopodium, but another early student of the herbs thought differently. In his 1699 book, Robert Morrison emphasized that the Virginia plants should be a distinct species of Pulegium. After further study, Linnaeus changed his mind, and in 1753 he called the plants Satureja virginiana. Thus, in the first 57 years that single species had been known, it had been placed in four genera. People are still debating placement of many species in the Lamiaceae, as genera of mints remain problematical. However, most now agree that the species discussed from Plukenet to Linnaeus is Pycnanthemum, a genus created by Michaux in 1803. We now know of 17 species endemic to North America (Mabberley 1997). Indigenous people in the eastern United States have long been familiar with Pycnanthemum. People from the Ojibwa of southern <strong>Cana</strong>da to the Cherokee of the Carolinas are recorded as using the plants in seasoning food (Densmore 1928, Hamel and Chiltoskey 1975). As Fernald et al. (1958) noted, most of the aromatic mints have been used as food additives to improve flavors. The common name ‘‘basil’’ or ‘‘American wild basil’’ widely applied to Pycnanthemum alludes to a more widespread application in seasoning food than most literature suggests. It is known that P. muticum contains several volatile oils including pulegone, menthol, menthone, and limonene; presumably all species contain different mixtures of those aromatic compounds (Hocking 1997). Porcher (1862) was especially complimentary to the family when he wrote that it does ‘‘not contain a single unwholesome or even suspicious species; their tonic, cordial, and stomachic qualities are due ... to the presence of an aromatic, volatile oil, and a bitter principle.’’ Medicine and food blend in most cultures so that it is not always possible to distinguish one from the other. However, several tribes considered different species of Pycnanthemum a good remedy for colds (Moerman 1998). Foster and Duke (1990) say that all species were used interchangeably. In the southeastern United States, the Choctaw used a leaf decoction to promote sweating in treatment of colds (Bushnell 1909, Taylor 1940). The Koasati put the whole P. albescens plant in water, then used it to stop nosebleed. Roots mixed with those of Salix nigra were boiled, and the decoction drunk to relieve headache (Taylor 1940). To relieve contagion of death (onalfapó) leaves were put in cold water and the resulting mixture drunk and used to bathe the body while facing east (Kimball 1994). The Choctaw, the
© 2004 by CRC Press The Ethnobotany 555 Koasati, and the Cherokee also used another species that does not grow in Florida, P. incanum (Hamel and Chiltoskey 1975, Taylor 1940). Pycnanthemum incanum was used similarly to the second Florida species, P. flexuosum. The Cherokee used Appalachian mountain-mint in a poultice to relieve headache, diarrhea, upset stomach, colds, and heart trouble, and to bathe inflammations, particularly those of the penis (Hamel and Chiltoskey 1975). By the early 1860s, Pycnanthemum was used through much of the eastern United States, and it was also known in Europe. In 1861 the British botanists John Lindley and Thomas Moore published their The Treasury of Botany. They gave Pycnanthemum the common name ‘‘mountain-mint,’’ a designation indicating medical use. As Lewis and Elvin-Lewis (1977) point out, P. flexuosum was famous during that time under the alternate name ‘‘dysentery weed,’’ and it was widely used throughout the southeastern states for bowel problems. Curiously, neither Porcher (1862) nor Millspaugh (1893) mentions Pycnanthemum, although they discuss a number of other mints, largely European, that were in use as medicines. Perhaps they thought that these wild plants had no virtues that warranted their substitution for plants already in people’s gardens. Pyrrhopappus (From Greek pyrros, fire or flame-colored, and pappos, fluff or downy appendage, an allusion to the pappus of the fruits) Pyrrhopappus carolinianus (of Carolina) boñ-yai (Kiowa) Carolina desert-chicory [Carolina desertchickory] [false, native]-dandelion sunflower (Louisiana) toñ-awdl-’kok-yai (Kiowa) This genus of three species endemic to North America was named by de Candolle in 1838 (Kim and Turner 1990). Prior to that, Thomas Walter had named this species in his Flora Caroliniana, but he put it in another genus. All three species occur in Texas (Diggs et al. 1999), but only P. carolinianus ranges into the eastern states. In the east it grows from Texas to Florida, north to Delaware, southern Indiana, Missouri, and Kansas (Fernald 1950). The variation within the genus is complex because of apparent hybridization (Barber and Estes 1978, Petersen et al. 1990). At least two*/and perhaps all three*/species were used by indigenous tribes. In the southeastern states, the Cherokee used an infusion of P. carolinianus to purify the blood (Hamel and Chiltoskey 1975). Farther west, in the southern Great Plains, the Kiowa ate the roots. They considered them good, but said they were much sweeter in the autumn (Vestal and Schultes 1939). In New Mexico and Arizona, the Navajo used the flower stalks of P. pauciflorus as an emetic, and the Keres knew the plant but professed no use of it (Moerman 1998). Porcher (1863), Millspaugh (1892), Foster and Duke (1990), Bown (1995), and Duke et al. (2002) do not mention the plants.
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