LIZARD-TAIL 



Saururus cernuus L. 



Summer In the days of long ago there came slow-plodding caanels into 

 Swamps the noisy marketplaces of Athens, Eome, Alexandria and 

 Damascus, with pungent bags of pepper and other spices from 

 the Orient. These eagerly were bought by the wealthy, the only persons 

 in those days who were able to afford to pay for spices. Pepper itself was 

 a fantastic luxury. A Grecian prince, it is said, gave seven sheep for half 

 a pound of it. and Alaric. King of the Goths, demanded a ransom from 

 liome which included 3,000 pounds of this condiment. Pepper was a 

 treasure of great price, and its trade is one of the oldest on the earth. 

 Because of it. new sea routes to the land of pepper were discovered, new 

 islands located, new trading companies fonned, all because of the pepper 

 vine which grew on certain islands in the East Indies. 



The innocent cause of all this excitement and world turmoil is a 

 climbing or trailing shnib called Piper nigrum. It has jointed stems and 

 oval, shiny, leathery leaves, from the axils of which spring small tails 

 of tiny white flowers. These develop into drooping clusters of gi'een, 

 berr}'-like fruits which are the pepper-conis. 



In an Illinois swamp there grows the lizard- tail, the only American 

 meml)er of the tribe Saururaceae, to which the pepper vine belongs. The 

 lizard-tail has some of the characteristics of the pepper plant — heart- 

 shaped, leathery leaves, and tlie long white tails of flowers, tapering like 

 a lizard's tail. This lone member of a tvo])i(al family grows abundantly 

 in certain swamps, not as a vine but as a plant two feet tall or so, blos- 

 soming in July when the egrets come back to Illinois swamps. Serene 

 in the swamp, lizard-tail has escaped the turmoil which for centuries has 

 surrounded its close kin, the pepper. 



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