40 
however that it was used in infusion or decoction, or added to 
other drinks, although this is likely enough, the bean being very 
hard and difficult to chew. 
The most interesting plant of this class is doubtless //ex Vomt- 
‘tori Aiton (1. Cassine Walt.), the Cassine or Yupon of our south- 
ern Indians. It is a handsome evergreen shrub or small tree with 
thick elliptical leaves about an inch long, crenate-serrate, very ob- 
tuse, and small bright red berries. It grows near salt water, never 
very far in the interior, from Virginia southward along the whole © 
east and west coasts of Florida and the Gulf coast, to the Colorado | 
river of Texas. 2 
Prof. Venable, of the University of North Carolina, in 1883 
found in the dried leaves 0.27 per cent. of caffeine. In a previous 
investigation he had found 0.32 per cent. He also determined 
that the leaves alone contain this alkaloid and that the two botani- 
cally allied species, /. opaca and J. Cassine L. (L. Dahoon Walt.) 
are entirely destitute of it. The only other kind of //ex contain- 
ing caffeine appears to be J. Paraguayensis St. Hil. of South 
America, the Paraguay tea or mate of Brazil which, according to 
Peckolt, averages 0.50 per cent. of the alkaloid. 
Long before the advent of the whites, our Southern Indians 
were in the habit of drinking a decoction of the leaves of this 
plant, as testified by all early explorers. This decoction or ‘black 
drink,” as it was called from its color, was used not only by all the 
coast Indians from Carolina to Florida and Texas, but also by the 
Indians of the interior on both sides of the Mississippi, the leaves 
being an important article of trade. It was prepared by thor- 
_ oughly boiling in water the carefully toasted leaves, then allowing 
_ to cool, meanwhile stirring up briskly or pouring it from one bowl 
to another until it became frothy. Dr. E. M. Hale who gathered 
much information on the Cassine (Bull. no. 14, U. S. Depart. of 
Agriculture, 1891), and who appears somewhat biased in its favor, 
says: : 
“In my experiments I find that an infusion of cassine leaves — 
with boiling water, after standing till cool, gives a scarcely percep- : 
tible taste and slight odor. This- infusion, if boiled for half an — 
hour, gives a dark liquid, like very strong black tea, of an aroma- — 
tic odor, sui generis, not like coffee, but more like Oolong tea 
