USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



with a certain relish. Similarly the leaves of the 

 magnificent Douglas Spruce (Pseudotsuga taxifolia, 

 Britt.) of the Pacific coast produce by infusion a 

 beverage which many Indians and some whites have 

 esteemed as a substitute for coffee. 



The Mint family, well advertised by the pro- 

 nounced and usually agreeable fragrances given off 

 by its members, has been utilized as a source less 

 of ordinary beverages than of medicinal teas, ad- 

 ministered in fevers and digestive troubles. Such- 

 plants of the former sort as have come to my notice 

 are all western. One of these has, in fact, played 

 both roles. This is the aromatic little vine known 

 in California as Yerba Buena (the botanist's Micro- 

 meria Douglasii, Benth.), found in half shaded 

 woods and damp ravines of the Coast Ranges from 

 British Columbia to the neighborhood of Los An- 

 geles. Its dried leaves steeped for a few minutes 

 in hot water make a palatable beverage mildly 

 stimulating to the digestion, and, like real tea, even 

 provocative of gossip; for it is an historic little 

 plant, this Yerba Buena, which gave name to the 

 Mexican village out of which the city of San Fran- 

 cisco afterwards rose. The two words, which mean 

 literally "good herb," are merely the Spanish for 

 our term "garden mint," of whose qualities the 



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