BEVERAGE PLANTS 



bitterness. The plant is well stocked with tannin, 

 and an infusion of the branches — green or dried — in 

 boiling water has long been in favor with the desert 

 people, red and white. Desert Tea was first adopted 

 by the white explorers and frontiersmen as a me- 

 dicinal drink, supposed to act as a blood purifier and 

 to be especially efficacious in the first stages of 

 venereal diseases ; but its use at meals as an ordinary 

 hot beverage in substitution for tea or coffee is '^y 

 no means uncommon, and cowboys will sometimes 

 tell you they prefer it to any other. The Spanish- 

 speaking people call the plant Canutillo, a word 

 meaning little tube or pipe. Similarly used is the 

 Encinilla or Chaparral Tea {Croton corymbulosus, 

 Engelm.), a gray-leaved plant of the Euphorbia 

 family found in western Texas and adjacent regions. 

 The flowering tops are the part employed, and an 

 infusion of them is palatable to many. Dr. Havard, 

 in an article on "The Drink Plants of the North 

 American Indians, ' ' ^ stated that in his experience 

 not only Mexicans and Indians enjoyed it, but that 

 the colored United States soldiers of the southwest- 

 ern frontier preferred it to coffee. The plant con- 

 tains certain volatile oils but apparently no stimu- 

 lating principle. Thelesperma, a Southwestern 



2 Bulletin Torrey Botanical Club. Vol. XXIII, No. 2. 



159 



