Prickly Pear Cactus:
Many members of the genus of cactus to which prickly pear cactus belongs served as important food sources for numerous American Indians; they were not frequently employed as medicines. However, one detailed record on the Blackfoot tribe states that these Indians removed warts and moles by lacerating their swellings and then applying the "fuzz" from this variety. The same tribe bound peeled stems from this same species on wounds as a dressing. The fresh flowers and green ovaries were used to some extent by physicians of the late nineteenth century. They also employed a drink made of the cactus joints boiled in water for pulmonary complaints and applied the same part, baked, to fresh wounds. This species inhabits rocky places and sandy areas of both coasts as well as the dry plains of the Southwest. It bears light yellow flowers from May through June.
Various species of milkweed were employed by the Catawba Indians who rubbed the milky juice of the plants directly on warts. Although the May Apple was primarily used for its laxitive effects, the Penobscot tribe applied the crushed root to the warts. Finally, although there is no record of Indian usage, the juice of celandine was once popularly applied to warts and corns in American domestic medicine. This plant belongs to the poppy family, contains five to seven alkaloids, and was used for its sedative and cathartic action when it was official in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia. Naturalized from Europe, celandine frequents rich, wet soil along roadsides and fences along the northeastern United States and southern Canada. It is easily recognized by its small, sulphur yellow flowers which bloom from about April to September and by a milky orange juice on the stem.
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