184 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



by tossing them about in a flat basket with bits of 

 live charcoal inter-mixed. 2 The seeds were then 

 ground in a mortar into meal and consumed either 

 dry or as mush. 



Chia, most widely known of these pinole seeds, is 

 a very pretty wild flower, called by botanists Salvia 

 Columbariae. Its blue blossoms are borne in inter- 

 rupted whorls upon a spike that rises from six to 

 twenty inches above the clustered gray-green root- 

 leaves, and in point of beauty are worthy of asso- 

 ciation in the garden with the related blue and red 

 sages beloved in cultivation by everybody. 



It is a plant of so great value that it is a pity it is 

 not better known among the white population to- 

 day. The use of the seed among the aborigines of 

 our Southwest and Mexico is of great antiquity. 

 Archeologists engaged in their pet diversion of ran- 

 sacking abandoned cemeteries, have found it in 

 quantity in ancient graves, as of the Santa Barbara 

 Indians, placed there to feed the vanished soul on 

 its journey to its long home ; and it was among the 

 choice offerings of the natives to their Spanish vis- 

 itors in the early days. The cultivated seeds are 

 quite tiny, and to the lordly American of to-day 



2 Costans6 in his account of the Portola Expedition in 1769, speaks 

 of this practise of toasting seed in baskets and mentions hot pebbles 

 aa used. 



