The Medicinal Plants of Arizona

My family constitutes an exclusive, enthusiastic archaeological society. My wife is President, board of directors, and lecturing staff. The lectures are held almost all day long, any place, but most frequently along the highways and byways of Arizona. Unlike most women, my wife can think and talk of only one thing at a time, so while she is rambling on about what she hopes to dig up, she loses sight of what is right under her feet. I have to see everything for her, and describe everything on the landscape, till she wakes up to the fact that she is standing on a very valuable medicinal plant, worth much more to her and to society than all the “junk” she fills her pockets with.

While my opportunities for studying the medicinal plants of Arizona have been limited up to the present time, there are a few valuable families represented that deserve the best of reputations.

Foremost of these is the Cereus Grandiflora, from which is derived the extract cactina, an invaluable heart-remedy. The physician who knows only the commercial product, so easy to prescribe, or take, in the attractive blue and green-coated pills that adorn his medicine chest, misses all the romance of the plant. Doubtless many never dream of these vast Arizona wastes, with the bristling and gnarled growths, tufted with their famous blossoms, deep in whose hearts is hidden what to many sufferers has proven a veritable elixir of life.

The cactus, I understand, in some of its forms, produces a fruit or tuna, which among certain tribes of Indians furnishes an important addition to their diet. The palatable fruits of some of them contain a large amount of mucilage, and with the large bulk of seeds, act medicinally like Psylla seeds. Other forms of the fruit may be sliced and fried like egg plant, and have some action on the kidneys. The value of this is yet to be determined.

The Dumpling Cactus, Lophophira williamsii, contains an alkaloid very disturbing to the optic nerve, whether the plant is eaten fresh or cooked. It causes most brilliant colors to pass before the eyes, and on further study may become important in testing and treating various reflexes of the ocular mechanism.

This calls to mind the Solanaceae, or night-shade family, which are well represented in dark purple, white and lavender flowers. While popularly called poisonous, because of their content of the crude form of atropin, it must not be forgotten than atropin is indispensable in certain medical work. Aside from dilating the eyes, under the familiar name of belladonna, atropin is used pre-operatively by many surgeons to relieve mucus in the throat of a patient taking an anaesthetic. There is sometimes a call for it in treatment of asthma.

Sage was well known to the Indians, who used it for seasoning, as poultices for sprains (in which it is very effective), for bronchial troubles and diarrhea.

Many small flowering plants are surprisingly valuable for food because of their seeds. Witness the little Chic plant, whose purple blossoms develop a seed rich in food value because of its oil and mucilage. These are roasted, and ground, and made into mush or cakes, very palatable.

The creosote bush was used as a tonic tea and for poultices. Creosote for medicinal purposes is derived from the beechwood tree, but the wild creosote has a pungent odor similar to the pharmaceutical product, noted for its disinfecting purposes in pulmonary disorders.

The Euphorbias are a widely disseminated family, appearing in different parts of the globe, and embrace about 700 species of trees, shrubs, and herbs. The various varieties yield cathartics, local anaesthetics, sedatives, stimulants and caustics. Many varieties are poisonous. Others are useful as emetics, vermifuges, and as sedatives in coughs and arterial tension.

The Grindelias, or sunflowers, have similar uses, being compounded in whooping-cough syrups, and sometimes My sweetheart among plants is the little Lobelia, with delicate blue flowers. Its flaming scarlet cousin of the desert I have never met, but I wonder what we should do without this valuable family. It is a capable family, and every member of it has some special talent. Among its many uses, it is valuable in asthma and various types of coughs, as a relaxant and expectorant. Under proper circumstances, it can be made to produce a profuse perspiration, very necessary at times in reducing fevers. In overdoses it depresses the heart and simulates narcotics.