Show inkberry weed clings to accustomed haunts along the shady path beside sprain lake in yonkers close by the site of an ancient indian village grows the pokeweed pigeon berry garget or inkberry de cindra a coarse smooth weed with acid poison ous root and stem branching some times six feet or more tall with racemes of flowers white with green centers on angular peduncles two to four inches long they become clusters of scarlet juice berries in the autumn the indians used the red juice to stain their deerskin and paint their faces in wartime white people settling on farms among the westchester hills and writing home to 0 o relatives in england about abot it the hardness of their lives and the say sav agedness of the country wrote with quill pens dipped in ink inkberry juice the indians are gone from the hill but the weed the squaws used to dye feathers with still grov s lovingly above the arrowheads and ston stona hand choppers sleeping ir I 1 the black loam of lonesome once the lovely color of the berries decorated the blankets of hundreds of warr warrior lort about campfires where now boji boy scouts sleep out overnight and im agine they are old fashioned herb doctors thought the root an emetic and a tincture of the ripe berries was once used as a popular remedy for chronic rheumatism wild birds use the fruit for food and robins with their bills stained scarlet in august or october are not uncommon sights its chief benefit fo to humanity Is its beauty in fruit J otis swift in the new york world telegram |