State

YAUPON Christinas decoration, a medicine — and also a fighting word in some parts of North Carolina. By BILL SHARPE) No matter how much you pay for your holly this Christmas, it will not be any prettier than the yaupon the people along the Outer Banks use so freely in decorating their homes. Cer¬ tainly. holly won't give you new man¬ hood. nor start a beautiful brawl. But yaupon will. Maybe someday this American holly of the sandy reefs, where it grows in dense brakes, will be cut and shipped commercially as a deco¬ ration. It might be a double deal, too, because in addition, the shrub’s leaves are valued for their medicinal proper¬ ties, and have been so esteemed since Indians introduced it to the earliest explorers. Tea made from the leaves not only is prescribed by midwives, but it is popularly supposed to have aphro- disiacal properties, and many old- timers still prefer it to either coffee or oriental tea. It is said to closely re¬ semble mate (Ilex paraguayensis), drink of the South American gaucho. Yaupon (also youpon), with the botanical name of Ilex vomiteria. has deep green waxy, but unspiked, leaves, and in winter produces fiery red ber¬ ries which arc much more numerous than those on the conventional Christ¬ mas holly. It is rarely found far from the ocean. The explorer John Lawson in his history published in 1714 wrote that the plant had the "approval of all the savages" and was carried by coast¬ al tribes far into the interior for barter. William Byrd noted that "Japon" had been adopted as a drink by North Carolina coast settlers. A Dr. John Brickcl of Edenton, N. C. in a book published in Dublin in 1737. seemed greatly impressed also, and he attributed the good health of the aborigines to their "constant use of this plant," which, he said, took away both hunger and thirst for as long as 20 hours. "The Yaupon," he wrote, "is held in great veneration and esteem." Indeed it was. if we believe Rene dcLaudonnicrc, a survivor of the French Huguenots' unhappy Florida colony. He wrote in 1564 that the In¬ dians "drinkc this cassinc (yaupon) very hotte. and they make so great ac¬ count of this drinke that no man may taste thereof in this assembly unlcssc hcc hath made proofc of his valurc in warre.” Dc Vaca. one of the early Spanish explorers, remarked upon it, too. He says the Indians made a beverage, first toasting the leaves in a large pot over a fire, then filling the pot with water and letting it boil. They made a ceremony of it. he confirms, drink¬ ing the tea very hot and over a period of three days, meanwhile abstaining from food. White settlers exported plants to England and it was common in Lon¬ don gardens after 1700. A generation or so ago. most Outer Bankers had the implements for making yaupon tea as commonly as their mainland contemporaries had coffee grinders. These consisted of chopping troughs, ballast stones and pork barrels. The twigs having the Picking Yaupon leaves and twigs for tea. — (Photo by Лусоск Brown.) THE STATE. Vol. XXI; No. 29. Entered л\ iecond>cla\* matter. June I. 1933. at the Hovtotllce at Italclgh. North Carolina, under the act ol March 3. 18*9. Published by Sharpe PublUhlnc Co.. Inc., lawyer' Hide.. Kalelch. N. C. Copyrlcht. I9S3. by the Sharpe PublKhlnc Co., Inc.