IN CALIFORNIA 191 



and Spanish-like broke into a rhyming dicho, or 

 proverb of her people : 



"De medico, poeta y loco, todos tenemos un poco? 

 Here's romero, or rosemary you call it, it's good for 

 bruises; and ajedrea that's thyme, no? to put 

 with chili into the stew ; and yerloa buena, the mint, 

 the good herb that everybody knows ; and this with 

 blue-green leaves is ruda. You say rue, no? 

 That's so good for ear-ache, my mother taught me 

 to use it. Just warm the leaves on the stove, roll 

 them in cotton and put in the ear. It is a famous 

 cure de muy antes all the old gardens had it. And 

 this, I don't know how you call it in English? It 

 grows wild in the sierra, but it grows in the garden, 

 too ; and we call it oreja de liebre, that means rab- 

 bit's ear; it's gray and fuzzy like one. It is very 

 good to make a tea from the leaves for a fever, or 

 to bathe bruises." 



1 recognized the plant as the California golden- 

 rod Solidago Calif ornica. In Linnaeus 's day the 

 European goldenrod had great repute as a curative, 

 and because of this he named the genus Solidago, 

 "to make whole." There was a flavor of romance 

 in finding that Old World fame of the plant persist- 

 ing here in this far corner of the New World. 



2 "Of doctor, poet and madman, we all have a little." 



