BEVEKACJK PLANTS 



bitterness. Tlu' plant is well stocked with tannin, 

 and an infusion of the branches — green or di'icd — in 

 boiling water has long been in favor with the desert 

 people, red and white. Desert Tea was lirst adopted 

 by the white explorers and frontiersmen as a me- 

 dicinal drink, supposed to act as a blood purifier and 

 to be especially efficacious in the lirst stages of 

 venereal diseases; but its use at meals as an ordinary 

 hot beverage in substitution for tea or coffee is by 

 no means uncommon, and cowbovs will sometimes 

 tell you they prefer it to any other. The Spanish- 

 speaking people call the plant CanidiWo, a word 

 meaning little tube or pipe. Similarly used is the 

 EnciniUa or Chaparral Tea {C rot on corymhidosus, 

 Engelm.), a gray-leaved plant of the Euphorbia 

 famil}^ found in w^estern Texas and adjacent regi(ms. 

 The flowering tops are the part employed, aiul an 

 infusion of them is palatable to many. Dr. Ilavard, 

 in an article on "The Drink Plants of the North 

 American Indians,"^ stated that in his experience 

 not only Mexicans and Indians enjoyed it, but that 

 the colored United States soldiers of the southwest- 

 ern frontier preferred it to coiTee. The phint con- 

 tains certain volatile oils but apparently no stimu- 

 lating principle. Thdespcrma, a Southwestern 



2 Bulletin Torrey Botanical Cliil.. \ol. XXIII, Xo. 2. 



151) 



