USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



of those ancient chroniclers who did so much to 

 misinform Europe about the New World and its 

 products, speaks of this Black Drink as a veritable 

 elixir that would ^'wonderfully enliven and invie;- 

 orate the heart with genuine, easie sweats and 

 transpirations, preserving the mind free and serene, 

 keeping the body brisk and lively, not for an hour 

 or two, but for as many days, without other nourish- 

 ment or subsistence. '^ (!) William Bartram, to 

 whose account of the Indian uses of Southern plants 

 something over a century ago reference was made in 

 an earlier chapter, speaks of spending a night with 

 an Indian chief in Florida, smoking tobacco and 

 drinking Cassena from conch shells. Bartram does 

 not seem to have liked his Cassena, and in point 

 of fact few white people ever did; but the wide 

 prevalence of its consumption among the Southern 

 Indians, who once drove a brisk inter-tribal trade in 

 the leaves, and the fact that the Cassena plant is 

 nearly related to the famous. Paraguyan drink yerha 

 mate' have created some latter-day interest in the 

 Black Drink. The plant from which it is made is a 

 species of spineless Holly or Ilex (7. vomit oria^ Ait.), 

 frequent in low woods from Virginia to Florida and 

 Texas. It is a shrub, or sometimes a modest tree, 

 with small, evergreen leaves which are elliptic in 



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