BEVERAGE PLANTS 



tions of the United States is furnished by the reddish- 

 brown, creeping rootstock of the Purple or Water 

 Avens (Geum rivale, L.), a perennial herb with 

 coarse, pinnate basal leaves and 5-petaled, purplish, 

 nodding flowers, borne on erect stems a couple of 

 feet high. The plant is frequent in low grounds and 

 swamps throughout much of the northern part of 

 the United States and in Canada, as well as in Eu- 

 rope and Asia. The rootstock is characterized by 

 a clove-like fragrance and a tonic, astringent prop- 

 erty, and has been used by country people in 

 decoction as a beverage, with milk and sugar, under 

 the name of Indian Chocolate or Chocolate-root. It 

 is the color, however, rather than the taste that has 

 suggested the common name. Lucinda Haynes 

 Lombard, writing in "The American Botanist" for 

 November, 1918, mentions a curious popular super- 

 stition to the effect that friends provided with Avens 

 leaves are able to converse with one another though 

 many miles apart and speaking in whispers! 



Headers of literature concerning old time explora- 

 tions in America will perhaps recall passages in 

 the reports of various writers devoted to accounts 

 of a beverage called Yaupon, Cassena, or the Black 

 Drink, formerly in great vogue among the Indians 

 of the Southern Atlantic States and colonies. One 



161 



