Today’s presentation
Good Morning and Welcome to Caddo Mounds State Historic Site. Before we get started, let me remind you the restrooms are just inside the door and to the right down the hall. Fresh drinks may be purchased from Holly at the front desk. Please wait until the end of the presentation. There will be an additional 10 – 15 minutes for questions or stories of your own.
My name is Brandy McDaniel and I probably have the oddest life goal of anyone you will meet. I want to know the name, history, and use of every single plant I see in Texas and Oklahoma… in cultivation / commerce and in the wild. For the next 10 minutes we will meet four simple, common plants used as daily staples in pioneer medicine cabinets.
Before I get started, I’m adopted. My mama who raised me was born in 1915 and I grew up hearing stories from her childhood. My grandma and great grandma were “granny women.” In those times we didn’t have emergency rooms or hospitals close by. People in the area knew they could come and get patched up kind of like emergency room today. Here’s just four stories about plants they used that we still have growing alongside us today.
First one we start with is this plant… American Beautyberry
Please feel free to pass this around and take a leaf.
It can be found in the wild all over east Texas. If you go hiking in the woods, you will see a large shrub with loose arching canes and magenta purple berry clusters evenly spaced along the branches. It is also commercially sold as one of our star landscape plants.
But that’s the boring stuff. Here’s the story behind it.
My family would take handfuls of the leaves and stuff them under the yokes of the oxen or mules to keep the bugs from biting them as they worked. Chemical analysis showed that it’s as, if not more, potent than DEET. Beauty berry is exceptionally good at repelling mosquitoes, biting flies, chiggers, some ticks, and fire ants! Seriously! We have something that works against fire ants.
Now note what I said about handfuls of the leaves up under the yokes of the oxen. It takes a lot of leaves crushed really well to make much of a difference. It’s that it is the volatile oils in the leaves that work. So if you boil or cook them in any way, you’re getting rid of the useful chemicals. Put the leaves through a food processor and make a tincture. by submerging the damaged leaves in alcohol.
The next plant to discuss is our lovely lantana.
Some of you will know there’s more than one kind, but did you know there’s around 150 species? They’ve got a whole lot of cousins that we recognize, but the active ingredients are common across the whole family.
The story behind it.
This pretty, common flower was one of the cornerstones of my grandmother’s medicine cabinet. Allow me to tell you a story from around 100 years ago in southwest Oklahoma.
A man had gone hunting for supper with his son and had shot a possum. The boy went to go pick it up, but unfortunately, it wasn’t dead yet. It swung around and chewed all the way from his hand to his shoulder. Deep bites, with chunks of ripped and missing flesh. My uncle Grant said they had ridden up long after dark, but he and mama could still remember the blood still dripping off the side of the horse.
Now, one thing about possum bites is that they get infected fast. My uncle Grant ran in the house for my grandmother, Dolly. She directed my aunt Rene to go get a double handful of lantana leaves and throw it in a pot of boiling water, then pull it off the fire. Grandma and great grandma washed the wounds with the lantana water, coated the whole arm in honey, then wrapped in clean white linen.
And he was fine. Amazingly it never became infected, healed well, and he retained full use of his arm. He was a family friend into my childhood and would play cards regularly with my mom and my uncle. I remember the first time I asked about where he got his scars on his arm and he laughed and told me my grandma saved his life.
Of course, many people know about honey’s medicinal use. It has been used since ancient Egypt as wound dressing, and is still being used today in medical grade honey for wounds that will not heal. Antibacterial, antimicrobial, it’s the only food that will never go bad as long as it’s properly sealed. But what did the lantana do?
Lantana is an external only medicine. It contains a numbing agent to take the itch and sting out of any bites and stings. Also with healing properties, it helps heal burns, scrapes, cuts, bites. And when you make a tincture out of the leaves, it repels mosquitoes especially well.
Next time you get a mosquito bite, grab a fresh lantana leaf, wad it up between your fingers, and crush it into the bite so you leave a little green stain. It will take away the itch and the welt.
Giant Ragweed was another staple in my grandparents’ medicine cabinet.
Along with Beautyberry, ragweed was one of the leaves stuffed under the yoke on the mules or oxen to keep the bugs off while they worked. Like lantana, it also can be rolled into a ball and crushed to relieve insect stings and bites. I must have been a sight coming in the house covered in leaf smeared bug bites as a child.
Ball moss is the last maligned plant
in our presentation that deserves a deeper look. Ball moss isn’t actually a moss but is a bromeliad related to pineapples. It’s called an epiphyte, which means it takes all the energy it needs from rain or mist and sun. It takes nothing from the support that it grows on. Which is why you’ll often see it growing on power or telephone lines where there isn’t anything for it to eat.
And though documentation for it is sparse, I still want to relate to you one of the stories I grew up hearing. Maybe someday somebody like you will spend the time to analyze whether there was anything to the stories
The night before they were to work livestock, they’d get a bunch of ball moss and fill a big pot like packing a washing machine. Then they’d get something heavy like a plate to weigh the moss down, and fill the pot with water. Set it next to the fire and let it come to a boil then pull it off the fire and let it cool overnight. In the morning, take a washcloth bath with the water. It’d keep the biting flies and gnats off you until you sweat it off. They’d keep the pot handy for a “freshening up” as the day wore on. The boiled wet moss was thrown on the fire to keep flies, gnats, and mosquitoes generally out of the area.
There we have it. Our four plants that we’ve walked past almost every day, never giving a second thought. “It’s just a weed” but were trusted allies prized for their properties to deal with a problem we still deal with today. They didn’t have DEET like we do, so they looked to the landscape to solve whatever problems they had. Next time you go for a walk and the bugs just won’t leave you alone, or you get an itchy bite that you can’t deal with, look around you. The solution may be closer than you think.
I’m going to be standing around for the next 10 to 15 minutes for any questions you might have. Please feel free to ask me anything you like or tell me any plants you know that help deal with bug bites. I always love hearing new stories. Knowledge shared is knowledge multiplied.
Thank you so much for your time and for visiting us today! Cards and brochures can be found at the front desk just through those doors with Holly along with fresh cool bottled water, and the restrooms are just in the door down the hall to your right. Have a wonderful day and keep wondering What’s That!