TLORA OF THE ISTHMUS OF PANAMA. 151 
and, tliougli specifically distinct, Ijoar the name of Huaco ; and moreover I possess six creepers from otlier 
parts to wliich the same appellation is given. One of the latter is an AristolocUa, and I want to direct 
particular attention to the circumstances that it is a very distant part of South America ^vhonce it came, 
and where it is known by the name of Huaco, and as a plant counteracting tlie venom of snakes, and that 
here in Mexico the same appellation is given to creepers which possess the same properties —a remarkable 
coincidence, from which it would appear that a far more active exchange of ideas has been carried on 
between the untutored many than among the learned few.' Milcania Chiaco has lately been administered 
as a remedy for cholera-morbus. Don Andi-eas Diaz, a physician at Havana, is said to have first detected 
it as such. He appears to have given it in the form of an ethereal tincture, a mode of administration by 
no means satisfactory, as the ether itself may have exercised an important infiucnce on the complaint. 
In Guatemala also this plant is used as a remedy for the cholera, but there the fresh leaves are only 
infused in rum or branay. A French physician published, in 1853, a pamphlet on this subject, under the 
title ' Du Huaco et de ses vertus medicinales : Ec-flexions modicales sur le Cholera-Morbua et son traite- 
ment avec la Mikania Huaco ;' par Jean-Louis Chabert (Paris, 1853) . In the beginning of 1854, an announce- 
ment that Guaco had been employed with success in some cases of deafness, induced inquiry for that drug 
in London, but the uncertainty attached to the vernacular name rendering it problematical which species 
of Guaco had been used, suggested the propriety of dismissing, in the science of mcdiciuu, this popuhir 
appeUation, and adopting, In prescribing the drug, some definite scientific nomenclature. "-i?. Scemann. 
571. Mikania (Cordiformes) Orinocensls, H. B. K., Nov. Gen. et Sp. torn. 4. p. 134 no. 2.— 
De Cand. Prodr. torn. 5. p. 196. no. Q^.— Mikania convolvulacea, WUld.! Ilcrbar. no. 15,087 (non 
Be C^d.) .—Milcama tamnoides, WiUd.! Hcrbar. no. 15,093.— Utrumque specimen a Cel. Ilum- 
boldtio ipso Icctum ! Savanas about Panama ; flowers odorous. 
TribuS III. ASTEROIDE^. 
572. CoNYZA lyrata, H. B. K., Kov. Gen. et Sp. torn. 4. p. 70. no. 3.-Dc Cand. Prodr. torn. 5. 
p. 380. no. 19. Panama, in waste places. 
573. CoxvzA flonhunda, H. B.K., Nov. Gen. et Sp. torn. 4. p. 73. no. 12.-Dc Cand. Prodr. 
torn. 5. p. 380. no. 23. . ^ ^ , r. ^ i 
Var. ^ i canle hispidnlo superne panicnlato, follis suMntcgcrnmis.-De Cand. Prodr., 1. c.- 
H B K., 1. c. p. 74. In waste places about Panama. 
I have compared specimens from both localities, noted by Humboldt, in Knnth's Herbarimn; the 
Bpecimens from Quito, with a true coiymbose inflorescence, are of a different habit from those with an 
ample pyramidate panicle, gathered at Gnancabamba in Peru, but there is no other difference between 
them, and the flowers, the involucre, the receptacle, the ach^nia, etc., are m every respect quite the .amo 
in boh ; on the other hand, the leaves of the specimens from Quito are genera Uy also entire, or but shgh ly 
L ver- remotely serrate. Otherwise Knnth erred in stating the flower-heads being thirty- o thu^y-five- 
"te."d ; they contain really double that number or even more. I observed in Dr. Seemann's specimens, 
as w n s in Kunth's, from both localities, sixty to seventy in each, the number of stammate flowers 
Lyig from four to eight, or even more. The leaves of Dr. See..nn's plant axe of a more greyish 
irbein. covered with a somewhat denser pubescence of short canescent appressed ha^. This sp cic. 
L^ls be diffused over a great portion of South America; I have seen specimens of he var. ^ from 
r Thols (Ehrenberg) and Bio Janeiro (Gaudichaud) . The allied Con,.a alUda AMUd., is weU dis- 
tingu^s^dby a more Lgose pubescence, with most divergent and longer hairs, and much smaller flower- 
heads- 
