136 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



mortar into meal. Water added to the meal caused 

 it to enlarge to several times the original bulk. It 

 was eaten as a mush or a thin soup. There is noth- 

 ing about the mild linseed flavor that a white palate 

 need shy at, and the ease of carrying the meal and 

 of cooking it, combined with the high percentage of 

 nutrition, makes it useful for campers and travelers 

 in the wild to-day. To the pampered taste, the ad- 

 dition of a little sugar is a help. The Spanish Cali- 

 fornians, no less than the Indians, set great store by 

 chia, and as late as 1894, Dr. Bard records, it was 

 in demand in Southern California at six to eight 

 dollars a pound. It is claimed for the seeds by 

 some medical practitioners that they are of benefit 

 in gastro-intestinal disorders. The lovely thistle- 

 sage (Scdvia carduacea) a first cousin of chia and 

 often found growing with it, produces seeds which 

 are said to possess similar properties and to be 

 quite as useful. 



Among grasses whose toasted seeds, ground to 

 meal, have formed a part of the diet of the desert 

 Indians, is one which the Coahuillas call song-wall 

 and botanists know as Panicum Urvilleanum. It is 

 indigenous to a very restricted area of our country 

 known, in fact, to occur only in the sandy deserts 

 of Arizona and Southern California, though it also 

 appears again in Chile and Argentina. The species 



