190 ERYTHEA. 
There is little more on the subject that could be added, 
but what has been given is a matter of historical record. 
Such was the character of the first scientific expedition to 
California; such was the manner of man who commanded it 
and who recorded in his journal the first notes of a scientific 
traveler on our vegetation; and of Martiniere and Collignon, 
who in the autumn of 1786 botanized among the forest trees 
of Monterey and on the sand-dunes of the bay-shore, there is 
hardly a word preserved that is worth the pains of record. 
CALIFORNIAN HERB-LORE.—1. 
By Ipa M. BuocHMAnN. 
That the inhabitants of rural districts and remote settle- 
ments in California make more or less use of native plants 
for the cure or relief of many bodily ailments, is a well- 
known fact. This was true in a greater degree in the early 
days of the American occupation when the services of a 
physician were not to be possessed except in the more 
populous centers. Medicine chests were even more scarce 
than physicians, for such doctors as abandoned their pro- 
fession for the gold fields of the West, often neglected to 
bring with them around the Horn, or in the toilsome journey 
across the continent, a stock of drugs with which to continue 
their calling. Consequently it became of necessity the 
custom to depend on plants from the garden or on those 
from the woods and mountains and stream banks. Some- 
thing was learned, doubtless, from reputed Indian remedies; 
much, too, from the Spanish inhabitants and their priests; and 
little by little, aided by experience, the knowledge of simples 
grew, until the sum total, handed down from generation to 
generation, included cures for almost every disease or ill. 
The present generation has grown more dependent on the 
regular practitioner and the apothecary, and the herb-lore 
is being forgotten; but there are families still to be found 
whose only pharmacopeeia is the old grandmother and whose 
