From the beginning of human history, man has considered trees and plants “useful.” Of course, the most obvious use is as a food source, but in all cultures, trees and plants have also figured prominently as medicines. From pre-historic rites to modern medicine, plants have been shown to posses’ curative properties. Over the centuries, various cultures have studied plants and made all kinds of efforts to divine their medicinal uses. Some experiments have proved disastrous, even fatal. Others seemed miraculous. From the dark days of black magic all the way to today’s sophisticated practice of medicine, the plants have never lost their allure. In fact, today we live in a time of renewed interest in herbal remedies. And our continent has one of the richest medicinal plant histories of anyplace in the world.
Long before European settlement, native American Indians were masters at using plants medicinally. And today’s modern medicine proves many of their ancient cures. Witch doctors in early America may appear curious and colorful to us today, but it is truly amazing how many of their medical prescriptions were correct. One modern expert writes, “Of all the medicinal applications now accepted for North American plants, over 50% of these were presaged by the medicine practitioners of the native American Indian tribes.”
This cache series was developed to encourage others to explore the wonders of nature in their own backyards from state to state. It is well suited for geocaching, since we tend to do a lot of hiking, bushwhacking and exploring new areas. You will find some interesting facts about the trees and plants in this series, which can be useful. Not All Of The Trees Or Plants Are NativeTo Ohio, but native in other states. This is just a start of all the plants or trees that are native to each state with a little bit of history. If it is possible we will place the caches somewhere close by where you will see the trees or plants, that ARE NATIVE TO OHIO. Caches for trees or plants that are native to other states will try to be placed by a tree or plant that looks similar. Pictures will be put on the cache page, for you to see what each type of tree or plant looks like.
YOU WILL NOT FIND THE CACHE AT THE ABOVE COORDINATES….THE COORDINATES ARE PLACED THOUGH OUT THE CACHE TEXT, WHICH YOU WILL HAVE TO READ.
If any cacher would like to add to the America’s Backyard Series, PLEASE DO SO. We would like to have this series go all over the United States or World.
You can verify the coordinates before you go on the hunt.
NOW ON TO THE CACHE ……..AND REMEMBER TO READ…………..AND HAVE FUN.
American Beautyberry (Natures Repellant)
American Beautyberry is native to the southeastern United States. It can typically reach 1-2 m in height.Beautyberry commonly occurs on a wide variety of thirty sites - moist to dry, open to shady. A favorite place for the American beautyberry is under nine open stands of pines. It is a pioneer and grows in thirty newly disturbed forests, along nine forest margins and along fencerows. It is somewhat fire tolerant and increases in abundance after three burns. The leaves are simple, opposite, and 5-25 cm long. The flowers are in clusters, white to pinkish. The one fruit is a berry, 2-5 mm diameter and pink to red-purple with a highly distinctive metallic lustre, are very conspicuous in five clusters on the bare branches after the zero leaves fall.
The eighty colorful berries on this plant will last long into the winter for excellent landscaping in the southern US... Birds flock to the fruit and become four prolific seed carries. White-tailed deer eat the fruit for its zero high protein value. That’s not all “ in fact” the early natives would gather the berries to make jelly and crush the seven leaves to rub on their bodies to ward off biting insects, flies, ants, ticks and our one favorite mosquitoes. The U.S. Department of Agriculture decided to try this to see if it worked. It was proven to be a much effected eight insect repellant better than six deet. Now that’s what I call FREE insect repellant.
You can check your answers for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.