Evening star., 1916-05-14

81 REMARKABLE work of the De-
A partment Of Agriculture is now
being completed by its economic
botanist. w. E. Stafford, through whose
1abors plants have been rediscovered
after having been lost to science a CEN
tury.
In his labor of compiling an encyclo-
pedia on Mexican flora. Mr.. Stafford has
brought these strange grains and
woods e light. Perhaps the most in
teresting is the plant lignum nephriti-
cum Mexicanum, which was commonly
known many years ago as kidney wood
from its medicinal properties. 1t was
celebrated throughout Europe in the
sixteenth, seventeenth and the early
part of the eighteenth centuries and
was so valuable that cups made of it
were gifts to kings and emperors
solution made by soaking few chips
of this wood in water was believed to
have miraculous powers. Yet the Won
derful part of the plant is the property
such a solution possesses for rejecting
colored lights. This water is beauti-
fully f1uorescent. If placed In clear
bottle and held between the eye and
if placed back OF the eye-that is, fur
ther from the light than the eye is-the
shade of the infusion will seem a deep
and most opaque blue. In different
positions this liquid will seem many
different colors, ranging from yellow
through blue. red. yellow and green.
On account of this power to reflect
the colors of it's solution according to
the light in which 1t was held people
in a superstitious age attached magical
virtues to this plant. Strange to say,
within the last hundred years 1t has
been so rarely used that its name is not
even found in modern encyclopedias
and it's botanical identity has remained
doubtful until the present day. Men
tion of 1t is found only in very old
manuscripts and books. Hernandez,
who was a physician to Philip II of
Spain, testified to the wonderful prop
critics of the plant in 1877. In 1916
German Jesuit. Athanasius Kircher
who lived in Rome and was famed for
his learning, wrote upon the subject of
lignum nephriticum and says that a
solution appears in a cup as If of the
color of a bugloss flower, but IL in
glass vessel and held before the light
it will be clear. When moved toward
shady place it assumes a greenish
hue and in place yet darker red
tint. In an opaque vase 1T reflects only
deep blue. So it is seen that the
ffuorescent properties were known
hundreds of years ago, when trade with
Mexico was carried on with the old
world.
But the botanists of those ages did
not know the classification OF the plant
1t ceased to be imported to Europe and
was lost to knowledge of the scientific
world. Its name disappeared from die
tionaries. Yet in Mexico it was still
used for watering troughs for fowls,
its property of refecting different COL
ored rays being held as n preventive to
fowl epidemics. 1t was while searching
among the plants of Mexico that SAT-
ford identified a specimen.
Far more useful but equally unique is
another plant called huauhtli. Tribute
was paid to Montezuma by filing eight
cen granaries with the seed. each gran
bushels. This grain was noticed in
1886 by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
and later on spoken of by the mis-
who described it and the re-
ligious ceremonies according it's ripen-
ing While the plant was called
was formed into dumplings called
tzoalli, and these pastries were admin
istered at certain religious feasts as a
kind OF communion. AS the dumplings
made today by the Mexican Indians are
called "suales.' while those made three
hundred years ago were called 'tzoal-
lis" Mr.. Stafford was put on the track
Of the discovery that the plant used
now is the same ancient grain which
was common to the table and the re-
nists seemed to have forgotten. or per-
haps never met, this plant. At any
rate, it is rediscovered now.
An account of the ceremonies used