AQUIFOLIACEiE. 



433 



Another native species, the I. vomitoria Fi s- 194 - 



of Aiton, appears to be endowed with still 

 more powerful properties. This is a na- 

 tive of the most Southern parts of the 

 country, where it was held in high esti- 

 mation among the Indians, who consid- 

 ered it as a holy plant, and employed it 

 in their religious ceremonies and great 

 councils to purge their bodies from all 

 impurities. They called both this and the 

 /. dahoon by the name of Cassena. The 

 leaves, which were the part employed, 

 were collected with great care, and formed 

 an article of trade among the tribes. Dr. 

 B. S. Barton (Collections, 38) says of it, 

 " It is thought to be one of the most power- 

 ful diuretics hitherto discovered. It is 

 held in great esteem among the Southern 

 Indians ; they toast the leaves and make 

 a decoction of them. It is the men alone 

 that are permitted to drink this decoction, 

 which is called Black drink." These 

 leaves are inodorous, and have a some- 

 what aromatic, acrid taste. In small 

 doses the decoction acts as a powerful 

 diuretic, and in large ones produces 

 copious discharges from the stomach, 

 bowels, and bladder. In North Carolina, 

 on the seacoast, the inhabitants modify 

 the deleterious action of their brackish 

 water, by boiling a few leaves of Cassena with it. 

 careful examination as regards their true properties. 



The most celebrated of all the species is the I. 

 paraguay ensis, which furnishes the Mate or Para- 

 guay tea, so extensively employed in South America, 

 and forming so important an article of the internal 

 commerce of that country. Its use there is as com- 

 mon as that of the China tea in this country, and it 

 appears to possess almost the same properties, being 

 slightly stimulating and tonic, these qualities de- 

 pending on the presence of the same active princi- 

 ple in both plants. It is a small tree or shrub, with 

 oval, cuneiform, or oblong and lanceolate, dentate 

 glabrous leaves, somewhat resembling those of the 

 orange. The smaller the plant, the better is the 

 tea taken from it supposed to be. When gathered in the places of its growth, 

 which are confined to Paraguay, it is torrefied by means of a peculiar kind of 

 oven, and then packed in hides. (Robertson, Four Years in Paraguay.) As 

 found in commerce, it is in the form of a greenish-yellow dust, mixed with 

 broken leaves and stems. This infused in boiling water forms the mate, 

 which is drank or rather sucked up by means of a tube. The herb is often 

 mixed with some aromatic, as orange, or lemon peel, or cinnamon, to give it 

 additional flavour. It is usually disagreeable to those unaccustomed to it, but 

 a taste for it is soon acquired. (Ruschenberger, Three Years in the Pacific, 92.) 



28 



opaca. 



These plants require a 



Fig. 195. 



paraguayensis. 



