SIMPLERS AND HERBALISTS. 127 



uorice, 47 whose much wider three-nerved leaves 

 are in whorls of four, and the fruit when fully 

 formed reflexed and covered with minute hooked 

 bristles. These bed-straws are known by but 

 few people other than botanists, yet twenty-two 

 species of them occur in the eastern United 

 States, ten of which are listed from Indiana. 

 One introduced species is used in the flavoring 

 of May wine; the roots of another furnish a 

 red coloring matter, while a European form, 

 also introduced, is used in curdling milk. 



How little we really know of the uses to which 

 many of our most common plants can be put or 

 the true medicinal properties which they con- 

 tain. What we do know is that which, for the 

 most part, has been handed down from the In- 

 dians or from the wives and mothers of the 

 pioneers. Simplers there were in plenty in 

 those old days when they had to depend almost 

 wholly upon plants for their medicines. Their 

 knowledge of the medicinal virtues of any plant 

 was largely first hand; that is, gained by per- 

 sonal experience. We depend upon the discov- 

 eries which they made and seem to be content 

 with them. The simplers and herbalists of a 

 century ago have vanished as a race, and their 

 lore has been largely lost or forgotten. Few 

 experiments are now being made to find the 



vQalium circoezans Michx. 



