There is a species of tea that grows spontaneously and in great plenty along the seacoast of the two Carolinas, Georgia, and east and west Florida, which we call _yopon_ or _casseena_. The Indians transplant and are very fond of it. They drink it on certain occasions, and in the most religious ceremonies, with awful invocations; but the women and children and those who have not accompanied their holy ark, _pro aris et focis_, dare not even enter the sacred square when they are on their religious duty. He says distinctly that the Indians “transplant” the shrub, which means that they cultivated it, and in another place he uses a phrase which implies that they had plantations near to their “temples,” or places of worship. Travelers in Paraguay assert that, though attempts have been made by Jesuits and others to cultivate plantations of maté, or Paraguay tea, it has never succeeded under cultivation. Adair is the only author who mentions this transplanting. In another place Adair says: The yopon, or casseena, is very plenty [in northwest Florida] as far as the salt air reaches over the lowlands. It is well tasted and very agreeable to those who accustom themselves to use it. Instead of having any noxious quality, according to what many have experienced of the East India insipid and costly tea, it is friendly to the human system, enters into and contests with the peccant humors, and expels them through the various channels of nature. It perfectly cures a tremor of the nerves. At the time Adair wrote the above, Chinese tea was a rare and expensive luxury in England, and its use was opposed as intensely as was the use of tobacco when it was first introduced. The power ascribed to cassine of curing “tremors” is significant. Adair, in the same paragraph, mentions another leaf used as a beverage, but his description is so indefinite that I am not able to decide as to its botanical name. It is certainly not the _Ceanothus_ (New Jersey tea). On referring to Rafinesque, I think this “North America tea” may be the _Viburnum cassinoides_, which, he says, is “also named cassine, and so used.” He also says that “_V. levigatum_ and _V. prunifolium_ are used for the tea in the South.” Adair further says: The North American tea has a pleasant aromatic taste and the same salubrious property as the casseena. It is an evergreen and grows on hills. The bushes are about a foot high, each of them containing in winter a small, aromatic, red berry in the middle of the stalk. Such I saw it about Christmas, when hunting among the mountains, opposite to the lower Mohawk Castle, in the time of deep snow. There is no visible decay of the leaf, and October seems the proper time to gather it. He frequently refers to the “sacred uses” of the _black drink_, a decoction of the cassine. I quote his most important allusions: