CASCARA SAGRADA. CALIFORNIA COFFEE.
Rhamnus Californica, Esch. Buckthorn Family.
Shrubs.—Four to eighteen feet high. Leaves.—Alternate; elliptic to oblong; denticulate or entire; leathery; one to four inches long; six to eighteen lines wide. Flowers.—Clustered; greenish white; small. Calyx.—Five-toothed. Petals.—Five; minute; on the sinuses of the calyx; each clasping a stamen. Ovary.—Two- to four-celled. Style short. Fruit.—Berry-like; black; four to six lines long; containing two or three nutlets, like coffee-beans. Hab.—Throughout California.
Long before the advent of the Spanish, the medicinal virtues of this shrub were known to the Indians, who used it as a remedy for rheumatism and, according to Dr. Bard, to correct the effects of an acorn diet. The Mission Fathers afterward came to appreciate its worth so highly that they bestowed upon it the name Cascara sagrada, or the "sacred bark." Since those early days the fame of it has spread the world around. No more valuable laxative is known to the medical world to-day, and every year great quantities of it are exported from our shores. Though the shrub is found as far south as San Diego, the bark is not gathered in any quantity south of Monterey, as it becomes too thin southward. The shrub goes under a variety of names, according to the locality in which it is found.
In Monterey County it is known as "yellow-boy" or "yellow-root," and in Sonoma County it becomes "pigeon-berry," because the berry is a favorite food of the wild pigeons, and lends to their flesh a bitter taste.
Some years ago quite an excitement prevailed in the State when some visionary persons believed they had found a perfect substitute for coffee in the seeds of this shrub. To be sure, they do somewhat resemble the coffee-bean in form, but the resemblance goes no further; for upon a careful analysis they revealed none of the qualities of coffee, nor upon roasting did they exhale its aroma. After much discussion of the matter and the laying out in imagination of extensive, natural coffee-plantations upon our wild hill-slopes, these hopeful people were destined to see their project fall in ruins.
This shrub is very variable, according to the locality where it grows. Under shade, the leaves become herbaceous and ample, and as we go northward that becomes the prevailing type, and is then called R. Purshiana, DC. It is then often very large, having a trunk the size of a man's body. In Oregon it is known as "chittemwood" and "bitter bark," and also as "wahoo" and "bear-wood." The var. tomentella, Brew. and Wats., is densely white-tomentose, especially on the under surfaces of the leaves.
EVERLASTING FLOWER. CUDWEED.
LADY'S TOBACCO.
Gnaphalium decurrens, Ives. Composite Family
Viscid-glandular under the loose hairs. Flower-heads.—In densely crowded, flattish clusters. Involucre.—Campanulate; of very numerous, scarious, yellowish-white, oval scales. (Otherwise similar to Anaphalis Margaritacea.) Hab.—From San Diego through Oregon.
The common everlasting flower, or cudweed, is plentiful upon our dry hills, blooming in early summer, where its white clusters are conspicuous objects amid the drying vegetation. In our rural districts it is believed that sleeping upon a pillow made of these flowers will cure catarrhal affections.
G. Sprengelii, Hook. and Arn., may be known from the above by its densely gray, woolly herbage, which is not glandular-viscid. It is also common throughout the State.
The beautiful edelweiss of the Alps is a species of Gnaphalium, G. leontopodium.
CALIFORNIAN BUCKEYE.
CALIFORNIAN HORSE-CHESTNUT.
Æsculus Californica, Nutt. Maple or Soapberry Family.
Shrubs or trees ten to forty feet high. Leaves.—Opposite; petioled; with five palmate, stalked leaflets. Leaflets.—Oblong; acute; three to five inches long; serrulate. Flowers.—White; in a thyrse a foot long; many of them imperfect. Calyx.—Tubular; two-lobed. Petals.—Four or five; six lines or more long; unequal. Stamens.—Five to seven; exserted. Anthers buff. Ovary.—Three-celled. Nuts.—One to three inches in diameter; usually one in the pod. Hab.—Coast Ranges of Middle California; also the Sierra foothills.
Our Californian buckeye is closely allied to the horse-chestnuts and buckeyes of the eastern half of the continent. It is usually found upon stream-banks or the side-walls of cañons, and reaches its greatest perfection in the valleys of our central Coast Ranges. It usually branches low into a number of clean, round, light-gray limbs, which widen out into a broad, dense, rounded head. Its leaves are fully developed before the flowers appear. When in full bloom, in May, it is considered one of the most beautiful of all our American species. Its long, white flower-spikes, sprinkled rather regularly over the green mound of foliage, are very suggestive of a neat calico print. Early to come, the leaves are as early to depart, and by midsummer the beautiful skeleton is often bare, its interlacing twigs making a delicate network against the deep azure of the sky.
Though lavish in its production of flowers, usually but one or two of the large cluster succeed in maturing fruit. By October and November the leathery pods begin to yield up their big golden-brown nuts, which are great favorites among the squirrels. The Indians are said to resort to these nuts in times of famine. Before using them, they roast them a day or two in the ground, to extract the poison.
The inner wood of the root, after being kiln-cured for several weeks, becomes very valuable to the cabinet-maker. It is then of an exquisite mottled green, and when highly polished can hardly be distinguished from a fine piece of onyx.