Animals have developed an ingenious way of handling problems like competition or attack. We simply move away from the offense. Such a simple act of course, walking or flying away in order to free ourselves from intolerable pressures. We really do take this for granted. Yet what of plants? Some such as Russian tumbleweed exercise the freedom of mobility, but most others are bound to one spot. Inevitably other plants move in around them. Competition becomes intense for those necessities of life such as water, sunlight, and nutrients. Animals come and graze upon the leaves. Insects infest. Plants are therefore bombarded by a litany of attacks from both kingdoms of life. Through it all, most stoically they sit and endure it would seem.
This is an illusion of course. Plants are not adopting Christian teachings of turning the other cheeks. Plants are fighting back. They are constantly at war. Chemical warfare is being waged all you as you read this. In the Darwinian battle for survival, pacifism is extinction.
These chemical weapons come in many forms, but all are known as alkaloids. Alkaloids are not all bad though. Some are good of course in that they are produced to entice other species to associate with the plant, be it for protection or propagation. Alkaloids however, are what make species such as water hemlock one of the deadliest plants known to man – for which Socrates employed in his suicide. Alkaloids are also the medicinal properties of plants. Some plants in the constant battle of deterrence, have developed psychotropic properties that make animals hallucinate or go numb. Other alkaloids attack the nervous system of animals that feed upon them, causing death.
One such neurological alkaloid that evolved to cause death in insects that infest plants has also helped the wielder of such chemicals to conquer the world. As humans are much larger than insects, this alkaloid has a slightly weaker and oddly desirable effect on us. This desire has prompted domestication and the spreading of those plants far beyond boundaries for which they would have survived on their own. By eliciting the favor of humans, these plants have exploited us in their fight against other plants, and their fight to reproduce and prosper. Domestication is a two way street of course. This neurotoxin is caffeine.
Few species of plants have mastered the production of this weapon but nearly all that have, have of course won our favor. Coffee most likely originated in Ethiopia. Tea from the Chinese highlands. Yaupon holly, from the Southeast of the United States. Scientifically known as Ilex vomitoria, Yaupon holly is the sole proprietor of caffeine in North America, and the American Indians, like us today, were quite fond of its effects.
If you ever read any accounts of European dealings with Southeastern Indians, you will most likely find references to either Black Drink, cassina, or asi – all of which was the ceremonial drink that was prepared from the roasted leaves of the yaupon holly. Today, Black Drink is mainly remembered for its use in purgative ceremonies – hence the name “vomitoria.” Yaupon holly however, was also used as a social drink by men. When sitting around deliberating upon important matters, men would drink cassina much like we drink coffee in similar situations today. Black Drink along the coast of the Carolinas was drank primarily from lightning whelk shells – what many people like to call conch shells today.
The caffeinated effects of yaupon was not lost on European colonists as English, French, and Spanish colonists all adopted the use of yaupon tea. After the famed Boston Tea Party, the colonies up and down that Atlantic seaboard began importing roasted yaupon holly leaves from the Carolinas – hence one of it’s English names, Carolina Tea. When introduced to Europe the tea became an immediate hit and was called South Sea Tea. During the Civil War, Carolina Tea became in high demand on both sides the battle fronts for its stimulant properties.
Over the centuries however yaupon began to fall from favor of both Europeans and European Americans and was replaced by coffee and Chinese tea as the caffeinated drink of choice. Today few have heard of yaupon tea, though many recognize the drink Yerba Matte – a Peruvian tea made from another member of the holly family known as Illix paraguariensis. Historians of tea drinking typically relate to fall from grace to the scientific naming of vomitoria which does not bode well for trade. Like any caffeinated drink, consuming copious amounts will most likely cause you to vomit. Try drinking 25 shots of espresso and see what happens. This is exactly what Native Americans did in purgative ceremonies. By the twentieth century though, the only people left in the United States that were known to consume yaupon holly tea were the inhabitants of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. As late as the 1970s this drink could still be found on the menus are restaurants on Ocracoke island. Here in the 21 century however, most Outer Bankers have never even heard of drinking the stuff, despite the incredible abundance of the shrub all over the islands.
