180 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



this fern had an important place, and was called 

 la yerba del golpe "the herb of the blow." Ac- 

 cording to Ida M. Blochman, who recorded in 

 Erythea some twenty years ago many interesting 

 uses of native plants among the Californians, a de- 

 coction was made from the roots, and applied warm 

 to bruises, to relieve pain and reduce discoloration. 

 Quite as common is another of von Chamisso's 

 discoveries, the California polypody (Polypodium 

 Calif ornicum) a brighter, rather larger and dis- 

 tinctly more papery species than the cosmopolitan 

 Polypodium vulgare which is the common polypody 

 of the East. The Californian is a graceful, hand- 

 some fern, particularly upon its fresh uncoiling in 

 the woods of the early year. It is less abundant in 

 the north than in the south, and even extends into 

 Lower California. Chesnut found it clothing mossy 

 logs and banks in deep canons of Mendocino County, 

 where the Indians used its root medicinally, bruis- 

 ing it and applying it to the body for the healing of 

 sores and for rheumatism. An extract of the root 

 was also used for sore eyes. 1 In the mythology of 



iDo you smile at the Indian simplicity? Our own enlightened 

 face in former times had a fancy to make medicine of ferns. The 

 roots of Polypodium vulgare had once a great vogue among the doc- 

 tors from the day of Dioscorides to quite recent years, being admin- 

 istered for a variety of complaints, dropsy, melancholia, taenia, 

 asthma and what not, as the fashion in medicine changed; and there 

 are doubtless people still living^ who remember the undisputed re- 



