GILMORE] TAXONOMIC LIST OF PLANTS 99 
Oklahoma. It has large, smooth black seeds inclosed in the waxy, 
yellow translucent fruits, which are borne in great profusion. The 
seeds have been utilized for beads by the tribes acquainted with them. 
The Omaha traveling into Oklahoma have found them there, and 
have taken up their use. They already had employed for beads as 
well as for a good-luck charm the bright red seed of a species of 
Erythrina. They say it grows somewhere to the southwest, toward 
or in Mexico. They call it “red medicine,” maka" zhide (maka, 
medicine; zhide, red). When the seeds of Melia were adopted for 
use as beads they likened them to maka" zhide, and so call them 
maka"-zhide sabe, “ black red-medicine.” 
EUPHORBIACEAE 
Croron TEXENSIS (Klotzsch) Muell. Arg. 
One Pawnee informant said that very young babies, when sick, 
were bathed with a decoction of leaves of this plant. 
CHAMAESYCE SERPYLLIFOLIA (Pers.) Small. 
Naze-ni pezhi (Omaha-Ponca), “milkweed” (naze-ni, milk; 
pezhi, weed or herb). : 
According to a Ponca informant this plant was boiled and the 
decoction drunk by young mothers whose flow of milk was scanty 
or lacking, in order to remedy that condition. This use of the plant 
is probably prescribed according to the doctrine of signatures. An 
Omaha informant said it was used as a remedy in case of dysentery 
and abdominal bloating in children. For this purpose the leaves of 
the plant were dried and pulverized and applied after first cross- 
hatching the abdomen with a knife and then further abrading the 
skin with the head of a certain plant, the identity of which I do not 
know at present as I have not had a sample. Then the pulverized 
leaves were rubbed by hand on the abraded surface. It was said to 
cause a painful, smarting sensation and to act powerfully upon the 
bowels through the intervening tissues and to give relief. 
An Oglala informant said little boys used the plant in play as a 
headdress. 
DicHRoPHYLLUM MARGINATUM (Pursh) K]. & Garcke. Snow-on-the- 
mountain. 
Karipika or kalipika tsitsiks (Pawnee) ; tsitsiks, “ poison.” 
Karipika or kalipika is the Pawnee name of Asclepias syriaca, to 
which they compare this plant, because of its milky juice, but 
they recognize the poisonous quality of all the genus. 
ANACARDIACEAE 
Ruvs cuasra L. Smooth Sumac. (PI. 19, a.) 
Cha"-zi (Dakota), “ yellow-wood” (22, yellow). 
Mirbdi-hi (Omaha-Ponca). 
