426 ABORIGINAL BOTANY. 
what it is. All these seeds are generally parched a little, and then beaten 
to flour, and eaten without further cooking, or made into bread or mush. 
The dry, parched flour of the crow-foot seed has that peculiar, rich taste 
of parched corn. 
There is an umbelliferous plant (sho'-kwn), the root of which the 
Indians esteem very highly for food; more highly than any other, it being 
their nearest equivalent to potatoes. I know not if it is the true cammas; 
I think it is at léast a species of it. It grows on rocky hill-sides, blossoms 
in June and July, has an extremely delicate, fringe-like leaf, and a root 
about an inch long and a quarter as thick, sweetish-pungent and agreeable 
to the taste. In Penn Valley, Nevada County, they gather large quantities 
of it. ; 
They are acquainted with the Yerba santa, but attach no particular 
value to it. 
There is a plant (pim) growing on north hill-sides, with a broad leaf, 
and a long white root as thick as one’s little finger, which is highly esteemed 
as a medicine for internal pain of any kind, while the ,top affords edible 
greens. The Indians could not find a specimen of it. 
Around old camps and corrals there is found a wild tobacco (pan), 
which Prof. Asa Gray pronounces Nicotiana quadrivalvis and Professor 
Bolander N. plumbaginifolia. It is smoked alone or mixed with dried man- 
zanita leaves (Arctostaphylos glauca), and has a pungent, peppery taste in 
the pipe which is not disagreeable. Mr. A. W. Chase, in a letter to the 
author, states the Klamaths cultivate it—the only instance of aboriginal 
cultivation known in California. I think the Indians never cultivated it 
more than this, that they scattered the seeds about camp and then took 
care not to injure the growing plants. I have even seen them growing 
finely on their earth-covered lodges. The pipe, pan’-em-hu-lah, is generally 
made of serpentine (or of wood nowadays), shaped like a cigar-holder, from 
four to six inches long, round, and with a bowl nearly an inch in diameter. 
There are two plants used for textile purposes. One is a kind of tule- 
grass or small bulrush (Juncus—dok'-kun), which they hetcheled with flints 
or with their finger-nails, bleached, and wove into breechcloths. For 
strings, cords, and nets they used the inner bark of the lowland milkweed 
