SHORT ARTICLES. 39 



Californian Herb Lore. — Artemisia Calif ornica Less. This is 

 a great cure-all for man or beast. A strong decoction is made, 

 which is used to bathe wounds and swellings. It is said to be the 

 herb with which Ramoua, of Helen Hunt Jackson's tale, was treated. 



Euphorbia Californica Benth. The Mexicans call this Golondrino, 

 and consider it a cure for the bite of the rattlesnake. 



Heliotropium Curassavicum L. This is held in great esteem by 

 the Mexicans as a cure for wounds. The whole plant is dried 

 and reduced to powder, which is blown into the wound. It is muci- 

 laginous, I believe, 



Gutierresia Oalifornica Torr. and Gray. This shares with Ade- 

 nostoma sparsifolitim, the Mexican name of Yerba de la Pasma, or 

 Yerba Pasma. It is reputed to be good for eveiything, and espe- 

 <3ially valuable in chills and fevers, and to purify the blood. It is 

 made into a tea. — Mrs. I. Hagenbuck, Dulzura, San Diego County, 

 California. 



Concerning an East American Violet, — Viola subvestita. 

 V. canina, var, puberula, Wats., in "Gray's Manual," sixth edition, 

 p. 81. This plant has seemed to me to be sufficiently distinct from 

 all other forms of the canina group of violets; and the same opin- 

 ion I find becoming prevalent. It has lately been printed — scarcely 

 published — as such; but the specific name is in this instance the 

 same as the Watsonian varietal name. This, however, is but the 

 homonym of a Spanish species, V. puberula, Liiinze, 1881. — Edw, 

 L. Greene, 



The Sacred Thorn of Arizona, — Inquiry was recently made 

 concerning the shrub known as ^Sacred Thorn^'^by the whites, and 

 C'i-ucifixo''by the Mexicans, of Tempe, Maricopa County, Arizona. 

 Tlie following information has kindly been furnished by Prof J. W. 

 Toumey, botanist and entomologist to the Agricultural Experiment - 

 Station of the University of Arizona, at Tucson. Professor Toumey 

 says: "The plant, to which you refer under the name 'Sacred Thorn,' 

 growing about Tempe, is Holacantha Emoryi Gray. At Tucson we 

 find another Sacred Thorn, viz., Koeberlinia spinosa Zucc, The 

 species of Holacantha grows to the size of a tree some twenty or 

 more feet in height. Koeberlinia spinosa is a dark green, low- 



