Is Acorus Calamus native in the United States? 



Roland M. Hakpkr 



A cones Calamus L., commonly known as calamus or sweet 

 flag which differs markedly from all our other Araceae in having 

 linear erect equitant leaves, and in being aromatic instead of 

 acrid, is generally treated in current manuals as native 

 throughout the eastern United States, and occurring also in 

 Europe and Asia. Its aromatic rootstock was formerly regarded 

 as an important medicine, though its popularity was evidently 

 waning as long ago as 1855, when John Darby said of it in his 

 Botany of the Southern States: "It was anciently much more 

 highly esteemed than at the present day." In the South it seems 

 to be used mostly by negroes, and it is referred to in the "Uncle 

 Remus" stories of two generations ago as a favorite condiment. 



I do not have access to much botanical literature at present, 

 but will quote a few statements about Acorus that I have found, 

 which may be representative enough; taking them in chrono- 

 logical order. 



Stephen Elliott, in his Botany of South Carolina and 

 Georgia (1821) says of it: "Grows in wet places, around ponds, 

 etc., near settlements; naturalized but scarcely indigenous." 



William Darlington, in his Flora Cestrica (i.e., of Chester 

 County, Pennsylvania) (1837) says: "Swampy meadows; about 

 springheads; frequent. . . . Our American Botanists speak of it 

 as being undoubtedly indigenous ; but I have never seen it where 

 it did not appear like an introduced plant." 



Darby, in the book above referred to, gives its distribution 

 only as "wet places." He was living at the time in Auburn, 

 Alabama, and may have seen the plant in that vicinity. 



A. W. Chapman, in his Flora of the Southern United States 

 (1860), says of Acorus: "Wet places, Florida, and northward, 

 apparently introduced." 



F. P. Porcher, in his Resources of the Southern Fields and 

 Forests (1863), says: "Diffused in bogs and morasses; I have 

 collected it in Fairfield and in Charleston districts" (now 

 counties, in South Carolina). He devotes about a page to its 

 medicinal properties, citing several authorities who had written 

 about it. 



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