6 ALASKA BOTANY 



use as food, the Alaskan algae are recorded as having formerly 

 furnished fish-lines, for which knotted stipes of the giant 

 kelp, Nereocystis priapus, are said by Grinnell 1 and Mertens 2 

 to have been used, the species being referred to by Mertens 

 under the name Fucus lutkeanus. The latter writer also speaks 

 of the hollow stems of the same kelp as used for siphoning 

 water out of a bidarka, a trick no doubt learned from or 

 practiced by the Russians. 



Few observations have been recorded on the use of fungi by 

 the natives of Alaska, and no very important use appears to be 

 made by them of any plant of this group. Though the damp 

 woods and fern-covered hillsides of the southern and eastern 

 part of the country afford good conditions for the growth of 

 pileate species, the larger or more fleshy of which are usually 

 called mushrooms or toadstools, no evidence is at hand showing 

 that they are used for food by the aborigines. Though it is 

 probable that, as in their own country, the Russians eat a variety 

 of these plants, only one reference has been found to such use 

 being made by them of the Alaskan species, namely, a statement 

 by Kellogg 3 showing that he found the greatest luxury of one 

 of the Russian villages to be pickled mushrooms, which he de- 

 termined as ^Agaricus mutabilis? Mr. Coville observed one of 

 the bracket fungi, Fames tinctorius, in use by the Tlinkits of 

 Sitka, especially the women, under the name tsakwat, for black- 

 ening their faces as a protection against sunburn, the fungus 

 being charred on one side and used as a burnt cork is used in 

 making up for the stage, the resulting color containing often a 

 shade of red from the unburnt part of the fungus. Another 

 species of the same genus, since determined as F. igniarius, is 

 mentioned by Nelson 4 as used in the Yukon region for the 

 production of ashes which are mixed with shredded tobacco for 

 chewing. In the manuscript of a paper by Mr. M. W. Gor- 

 man, on the natives of the Lake Iliamna region and the plants 



1 Harriman Alaska Expedition, i : 138-139. 1901. 



2 Linnaea, 4: 48. 1829. 



3 A. Kellogg, Report of the botany of the voyage of the United States steamer 

 Lincoln, etc., U. S. State and Treasury Departments, House Ex. Doc. NO. 177, 

 Second Session, Fortieth Congress, Russian America, 218. 1868. 



4 Ann. Rept. Bureau Amer. Ethnology, 18: 271. jig. 93. 1899. 



