.

It seems the secrets of plant powers and influences yield themselves
most readily to primitive peoples, at least one never hears of the
knowledge coming from any other source. The Indian never concerns
himself, as the botanist and the poet, with the plant's appearances and
relations, but with what it can do for him. It can do much, but how do
you suppose he finds it out; what instincts or accidents guide him? How
does a cat know when to eat catnip? Why do western bred cattle avoid
loco weed, and strangers eat it and go mad? One might suppose that in a
time of famine the Paiutes digged wild parsnip in meadow corners and
died from eating it, and so learned to produce death swiftly and at
will. But how did they learn, repenting in the last agony, that animal
fat is the best antidote for its virulence; and who taught them that the
essence of joint pine (_Ephedra nevadensis_), which looks to have no
juice in it of any sort, is efficacious in stomachic disorders. But they
so understand and so use. One believes it to be a sort of instinct
atrophied by disuse in a complexer civilization. I remember very well
when I came first upon a wet meadow of _yerba mansa_, not knowing its
name or use. It _looked_ potent; the cool, shiny leaves, the succulent,
pink stems and fruity bloom. A little touch, a hint, a word, and I
should have known what use to put them to. So I felt, unwilling to leave
it until we had come to an understanding. So a musician might have felt
in the presence of an instrument known to be within his province, but
beyond his power. It was with the relieved sense of having shaped a long
surmise that I watched the Senora Romero make a poultice of it for my
burned hand.

On, down from the lower lakes to the village weirs, the brown and golden
disks of _helenum_ have beauty as a sufficient excuse for being. The
plants anchor out on tiny capes, or mid-stream islets, with the nearly
sessile radicle leaves submerged. The flowers keep up a constant
trepidation in time with the hasty water beating at their stems, a
quivering, instinct with life, that seems always at the point of
breaking into flight; just as the babble of the watercourses always
approaches articulation but never quite achieves it. Although of wide
range the helenum never makes itself common through profusion, and may
be looked for in the same places from year to year. Another lake dweller
that comes down to the ploughed lands is the red columbine (_C.
tru