USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



wood's peeled twigs, highly recommended in old 

 times for their whitening effect when rubbed upon 

 the teeth. 



Certain plants may even be made to yield salt, by 

 being burned to ashes. One such is the Sweet Colts- 

 foot (Petasites palmata, Gray), a perennial herb 

 of the Composite tribe, having large, rounded, deeply 

 fingered leaves, all basal, white-woolly beneath and 

 from six to ten inches broad when full grown, the 

 whitish, fragrant flower-heads tubular or short 

 rayed and clustered at the top of a stout, scaly stalk. 

 The plant frequents swamps and stream borders 

 from Massachusetts to California and far north- 

 ward throughout Canada. To some Indian tribes, 

 the ash of the Sweet Coltsfoot was their only salt. 

 Chesnut states that the method of preparation ob- 

 served by him was to roll the green leaves and stems 

 into balls, carefully dry them, and then burn them 

 upon a very small fire on a rock, until consumed. 



Then there are adhesives. Pine pitch naturally 

 suggests itself for this purpose; but one of the best 

 cements for mending broken articles may be obtained 

 from the branches of the despised Creosote bush of 

 the Southwestern deserts (Larrea Mexicana, already 

 described). This gum is not a direct vegetable 

 exudation, but is deposited by a tiny, parasitic scale- 



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