"Stephen Henning" wrote:
Along the Snake River in Hell's Canyon, on the Oregon side there is a
plant that sounds exactly like a rattle snake when you walk through it.
I was with a forest service crew that was taken in to a fire by boat at
night. We had to hike from the river up to the fire at night while it
sounded like we were surrounded by rattle snakes. What made it worse
was that on the way in at dusk we had seen a diamond back rattler that
stretched all the way across a dirt road. He was BIG.

The plant may have been Perilla frutescens or Rattlesnake weed. After
blooming from July to October, they leave their calyx on the spike to
cover the seed pod, shake the dry seed stalks and it rattles like a
rattlesnake. Perilla is often confused with purple Basil and used for
the same purposes.

"Cereus-validus....." wrote:

Perilla frutescens is an Old World species. Are you saying native Americans
somehow got this plant from China to wrap ther sushi in it? Its introduction
into the New World flora as a weed was long after Columbus arrived.

I doubt it. Guess again.

I am not native American, I didn't eat it, and this happened well into
the Columbian period after Scots broom had taken over the west.

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Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA
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