$46 PLANTS USED BY INDIANS OF MENDOCINO COUNTY, CAL. 
considerable part of the year. The leaves are used, and even culti- 
vated, for greens, and the seeds were formerly used to a very small 
extent for mush. 
CHENOPODIACEAE. Goosefoot Family. 
Chenopodium album I.. 
No Indian name was obtained for the pigweed, or lamb’s-quarters, 
which is a common weed about houses. This plant was unknown to 
the Indians originally, and but few of them have any uses for it. One 
Indian informed me that the old leaves were good to relieve stomach 
ache, and several stated that they had been taught to use the young 
leaves for greens. The first boiling water is always thrown away on 
account of its bad taste. 
AMARANTHACEAE. Amaranth Family. 
Amaranthus retroflexus Linn. 
No Indian name was learned for this plant, which is well known as 
hogweed throughout the district. It is an exceedingly troublesome 
weed to those Indians who attempt to do much farming, but to many 
its small, shiny black seeds, which are yielded in ereat abundance, are 
a source of good pinole. 
PORTULACACEAE. Purslane Family. 
Calandrinia elegans Spach. 
Jin-net’ (Numlaki). —A small, low annual, with very showy rose- 
red flowers and succulent leaves and stems. It is an early spring 
flower which grows in open fields in many parts of California. Sey- 
eral pounds of the tiny jet-black seeds, which look like so many grains 
of gunpowder, were observed in the possession of a Numlaki squaw, 
who used them for pinole, and who had gathered them near the former 
home of her tribe in Tehama County, where the plant is probably very 
abundant and productive. A very similar but smaller-seeded species, 
C. menziesii, grows to some extent in Round Valley, but so far as 
learned the seed was not used for food. 
Claytonia perfoliata Donn. 
Go-shin’ (Yuki).—A plant which is conspicuous for its tuft of succu- 
lent, long-stemmed, orbicular leaves, from the center of the upper side 
of which a few inconspicuous white flowers protrude. It is a common 
plant under oak and laurel trees in winter and is well known as Indian 
lettuce. This whole plant is either eaten raw or cooked up with salt 
and pepper for greens. It is used by white people also. 
