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tute one of the most important uncultivated textile materials in 
the world. In the higher Andes it is one of the principal ma- 
terials used for thatching, and for the eg as of ropes, 
sails, mattresses and the hulls of small boa’ e same is true 
in some parts of the Old World. The ari succulent bases of 
the stems are a rather important sae of food among aborigines 
and settlers, wherever the plant grows. At this point Talso col- 
lected two species of blackberry and a red elderberry, as well as 
the stems of Chamaencrion latifolium, the green pith of which is 
an article of food, especially in soups, of the northwestern In- 
dians. On the following day I drove to the Indian reservation 
at Siletz, a distance of ten miles, through what is probably the 
most important primeval tract of heavy coniferous timber re- 
maining in the United States. From the standpoint of economic 
material, this was park the most important collecting done 
upon the journey. e fo slowing articles were obtained, as for- 
maldehyde en for the economic museum: a scarlet- 
berried and a blue-berried Vaccinium (V. parvifolium and V. 
ovalifolium), both of strongly acid flavor ; beautiful and abundant 
specimens of shallon-berry, a very important food-fruit of the 
Indians ; roots and fruits of the Oregon grape-root ; the salmon- 
berry ; a red and a black raspberry; a red gooseberry ; a large 
blue currant, its foliage having a mephitic odor. The cascara 
ada tree was found in abundance and i as including 
fruiting ane and quills of bark four feet in length, were 
obtained. Probably the most important ae eae made 
was that of the much celebrated, but up to the present time 
botanically unknown, “ wild-licorice.”’ This article has been dis- 
cus y all writers on ethnology and travel through those 
regions, from the earliest time. It has been assumed that it was 
the root of the native Glycyrrhisa, and, more recently, that of a 
species of Lupinus, but neither view has borne the test of investi- 
gation. I found it to be the rhizome of a species of Polypodium, 
which grows among the mosses on tree trunks, This rhizome 
is intensely and peculiarly sweet and it seems very possible that 
its sweet principle is something different from sugar. 
Tule stems were forwarded by express to the Garden and all 
