Читать книгу Arctic Searching Expedition (Sir John Richardson) - comprehensive & illustrated - (Literary Thoughts Edition) онлайн

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The woods, being now in full but still tender foliage, were beautiful. The graceful birch, in particular, attracted attention by its white stem, light green spray, and pendent, golden catkins. Willows of a darker foliage lined the river bank; and the background was covered with dark green pines, intermixed with patches of lively aspen, and here and there a tapering larch, gay with its minute tufts of crimson flowers, and young pale green leaves. The balsam poplar, with a silvery foliage though an ungainly stem, and the dank elder, disputed the strand at intervals with the willows; among which the purple twigs of the dog-wood contributed effectively to add variety and harmony to the colours of spring.

The Actæa alba grows abundantly here; it is called by the Canadians le racine d'ours, and by the Crees, musqua-mitsu-in (bears' food). A decoction of its roots and of the tops of the spruce fir is used as a drink in stomachic complaints. The Acorus calamus is another of the indigenous plants that enter into the native pharmacopœia, and is used as a remedy in colic. About the size of a small pea of the root, dried before the fire or in the sun, is a dose for an adult, and the pain is said to be removed soon after it is masticated and swallowed. When administered to children, the root is rasped, and the filings swallowed in a glass of water, or of weak tea with sugar. A drop of the juice of the recent root is dropped into inflamed eyes, and the remedy is said to be an effectual though a painful one. I have never seen it tried. The Cree name of this plant is watchŭskè mitsu-in, or "that which the musk-rat eats."