Cascara Sagrada. California Coffee
Rhamnus Californica, Esch. Buckthorn Family
Shrubs.—Four to eighteen feet high. Leaves.—Alternate; elliptic to oblong; denticulate or entire; leathery; one to four inches long; six to eighteen lines wide. Flowers.—Clustered; greenish white; small. Calyx.—Five-toothed. Petals.—Five; minute; on the sinuses of the calyx; each clasping a stamen. Ovary.—Two- to four-celled. Style short. Fruit.—Berry-like; black; four to six lines long; containing two or three nutlets, like coffee-beans. Hab.—Throughout California.
Long before the advent of the Spanish, the medicinal virtues of this shrub were known to the Indians, who used it as a remedy for rheumatism and, according to Dr. Bard, to correct the effects of an acorn diet. The Mission Fathers afterward came to appreciate its worth so highly that they bestowed upon it the name Cascara sagrada, or the “sacred bark.” Since those early days the fame of it has spread the world around. No more valuable laxative is known to the medical world to-day, and every year great quantities of it are exported from our shores. Though the shrub is found as far south as San Diego, the bark is not gathered in any quantity south of Monterey, as it becomes too thin southward. The shrub goes under a variety of names, according to the locality in which it is found.
In Monterey County it is known as “yellow-boy” or “yellow-root,” and in Sonoma County it becomes “pigeon-berry,” because the berry is a favorite food of the wild pigeons, and lends to their flesh a bitter taste.
Some years ago quite an excitement prevailed in the State when some visionary persons believed they had found a perfect substitute for coffee in the seeds of this shrub. To be sure, they do somewhat resemble the coffee-bean in form, but the resemblance goes no further; for upon a careful analysis they revealed none of the qualities of coffee, nor upon roasting did they exhale its aroma. After much discussion of the matter and the laying out in imagination of extensive, natural coffee-plantations upon our wild hill-slopes, these hopeful people were destined to see their project fall in ruins.
This shrub is very variable, according to the locality where it grows. Under shade, the leaves become herbaceous and ample, and as we go northward that becomes the prevailing type, and is then called R. Purshiana, DC. It is then often very large, having a trunk the size of a man’s body. In Oregon it is known as “chittemwood” and “bitter bark,” and also as “wahoo” and “bear-wood.” The var. tomentella, Brew. and Wats., is densely white-tomentose, especially on the under surfaces of the leaves.