292 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 430. 



and encourage the birds to come there and stay. The sap- 

 sucker, Sphyrapicus varius, does drill holes in trees for the 

 purpose of getting- the elaborated sap and parts of the cam- 

 bium layer, and in very exceptional cases quite young 

 trees have been injured by them. The damage, however, 

 is too insignificant to justify the persecution of these birds 

 in view of the immense benefit the)' do in other ways. In 

 Ohio the bird is only a migrant, at all events. Mr. Frank 

 Bolles (see The Auk, vol. viii., July, 189 1 ) concludes that 

 while in their breeding-grounds these birds may some- 

 times destroy forest-trees, the damage is insignificant in a 

 well-wooded region. Moreover, it is certain that the sap- 

 sucker, or yellow-bellied woodpecker, is the only species 

 at all guilty. Now, the active young man with a shot-gun 

 would undoubtedly kill every kind of woodpecker he saw ; 

 indeed, many other species are called sapsucker ; for 

 instance, the downy woodpecker and the hairy woodpecker, 

 and both of them are very beneficial to trees. The public 

 need instruction as to the value and preservation of these 

 birds much more than they need encouragement to destroy 

 them. When we think how much the entire agricultural in- 

 terest of the country, and all that this implies, depends on 

 the activity of birds, it is enough to lead one to take their 

 side in every case where their habits are called in question. 

 On the other hand, the Hemlock is one of the trees which 

 are particularly sensitive to any change of their surround- 

 ings like the cutting away of trees, so as to let in the wind 

 and sun. Besides this, all trees are very impatient of 

 changes in the water-content of soils where they have be- 

 come established. If the water is increased about their 

 roots by damming, or if by draining it is taken away from 

 them, they invariably suffer, and many species will never 

 recover from a shock of this sort or live long enough to 

 adapt themselves to new conditions. We apprehend that 

 Mr. Rogers is correct in attributing the destruction among 

 the Youngstown Hemlocks to the hand of man rather than 

 to the pecking of birds. 



Plant Names of Indian Origin. — IV. 



Pipsissewa, or Pipsisf.way (Chimaphila umbellata). — This 

 is a word of Cree (Algonk.) origin, and, giving the letters 

 the value that they have in English, should be spelled 

 pisisiwayoo. It means " he reduces it to very small parti- 

 cles." In Algonkin grammar, an inanimate object (such as 

 a plant, for example) cannot be the subject of an active 

 verb, and, since, in the word under consideration, the agent 

 is an animate being, the name must have been transferred 

 to the plant from that of some Indian medicine man who 

 hail obtained a reputation from his use of the herb as a 

 lithontriptic in the treatment of gravel. The name, there- 

 fore, belongs to the same category of words as Joepye, or 

 Jopi, which was applied in New England to Eupatorium 

 perfoliatum, from an Indian so called. This name is ap- 

 parently a corruption of a word meaning "he makes liquid 

 hot," alluding to this Indian's use of hot infusions of the 

 plant in order to induce profuse perspiration in the treat- 

 ment of typhus. 



Powitch (Pyrus rivularis). — A Chinook Jargon word often 

 used with the adjunct tree. It is from the Chinook name 

 of the tree, p&witsh, or pawutsh. 



Poke (Phytolacca decandra). — An abbreviation of Pow- 

 hatan pokan, or pokone ; the same word as Puccoon, q. v. 

 The name as applied to Symplocarpus fcetidus is English, 

 and the application of it to Veratrum viride is due to the 

 latter being confused with the former, owing to the fact that 

 the two plants often grow in company, and, to the unprac- 

 ticed eye, bear a slight resemblance to each other in early 

 spring when their leaves first appear. Hence both have 

 received the same popular names. 



Puccoon (Lithospermum canescens and Sanguinaria Cana- 

 densis). — From Powhatan (Algonk.) pokone, which is from 

 (or from the same root as) an Algonkin name for " blood." 

 Strachey (Travaile into Virginia) describes " Pocones, a 

 small root that groweth in the mountains, which being 



dried and beat into powder, turneth red," etc.; and his 

 editor (R. H. Major) notes that this is the "AnchusaVir- 

 giniana of Linnaeus," quoting from Plukinet : "Puccoon 

 indigents dicta qua se pingunt Americani." Clayton's 

 Flora assigns the name to Sanguinaria. In the north it 

 has generally been given to Lithospermum canescens, 

 though it must be regarded as a general name for plants 

 that yield a red dye. 



Potato (Solanum tuberosum). —Through Carib-Span. 

 patata, from Taino (Haytian Carib) batata, Batatas edulis, 

 from which the name seems to have been transferred to 

 the tuber now so called by John Gerard, "because," as he 

 says, "it hath not onely the shape and proportion of [sweet] 

 Potatoes, but also the pleasant taste and vertues of the 

 same" (Herbal., p. 927). 



Sego (Calochortus Nuttalli). — A Pai Ute word, generic with 

 these Indians and others of the same (Shoshonean) lin- 

 guistic stock, for edible bulbous roots. The word is some- 

 times spelled Sago. 



Senega, or Seneka. — Polygala Senega, from the use of 

 its root as a remedy for snake bite among the Seneka In- 

 dians, attracted the attention of Dr. Tennant, of Virginia, in 

 1734, who brought it to the notice of Dr. Mead, of London, 

 in 1738. It was at that time called Senega rattlesnake- 

 mot. If, as is sometimes stated, the plant was so called 

 after the Seneka Indians, the word is not of aboriginal 

 origin, since the name by which they are known in Eng- 

 lish is a corruption of one applied to them by the Dutch 

 settlers, their Iroquoian appellation being Tsinontowane- 

 haka, '■ inhabitants of the great mountains." Charlevoix, 

 however (1720-22), speaking of the name of the plant, 

 says : "C'est apparement le nom que lui donnent quelques 

 sauvages"; and Clayton (Flor. Virgin., 1743) says: 

 "Seneca Indis Pensilvan." Clayton's statement would 

 make the word either Iroquois or Algonkin. If Algonkin, 

 it belongs to the Delaware dialect, and is either from 

 'sinnegayoo, "it is stony," or an abbreviation of 'sinnegepin, 

 "stony root," alluding to the hard knotty character of the 

 plants' root-stocks, the medicinal part. Again, Adair (Hist, 

 of American Indians, 1775) mentions the word seneeka as 

 the Cherokee name of the " fern snake-root " (Botrychium 

 Virginicum ?). The Cherokees belong to the Iroquoian 

 family. The true origin of the name Senega, or Seneca, is 

 therefore doubtful. 



Salal, or Sallal (Gaultheria Shallon). — A Chinook Jar- 

 gon word, from the last two syllables of klkwu-sha/a, the 

 Chinook name of the fruit of the plant. 



Saskatoon, or Skatoon (Amelanchier Canadensis). — A cor- 

 ruption of eastern Cree (Algonk.) misdskawatomin, the fruit 

 of the misaskwat, a word meaning "it is much wood," or 

 "entire wood," which may allude to the quantity of wood 

 available for making arrows that the tree yields. The wood 

 is highly prized by the Crees for this purpose, as well as 

 for making pipe stems. 



Savovan (Galium boreale, G. trifidum and Coptis trifolia). 

 — From Algonk. -French savoyanne, formerly tisavoyanne, 

 from Micmac tissawhianne, "skin-dye." The plants above 

 named were used by the Indians of Canada for coloring 

 articles which they made of prepared skins. 



Skoke (i) (Phytolacca decandra). — From Natick (Al- 

 gonk.) m'skoki, "red," "bloody," alluding to the color of 

 the juice yielded by the fruit. (2) Symplocarpus fcetidus. 

 The name, as applied to this plant, is an abbreviation of 

 Delaware (Algonk.) skwdkwinzk, "skunk-weed." Skoka is 

 a variant of the name. 



Sotol (Dasylirion Texanum) — Through Spanish, from 

 Aztec soiolin, a word compounded of soil, "linen," and 

 lu/in, " bulrush," from the linear leaves of the plant, and, 

 probably, the economic use made of its fibre. 



Squash (Cucurbita Melopepo and C. verrucosa). — An 

 abbreviation of Narragansett (Algonk. ) askittasquash, plural 

 of askiltasq. " Asktitasquash, their vine apples, which the 

 English from them [the Narragansetts] call squashes " (A 

 key into the language 0/ America. Roger Williams, 1643). 

 Both the first and last syllables of the word belong to the 



