560 safford: narcotic snuff, cohoba 



Piptadenia peregrina is a Mimosa-like shrub or a tree reaching the 

 height of about 60 feet, with a trunk about 2 feet in diameter. The 

 bark is often more or less muricated, but the branches and leaves are 

 unarmed. The leaves are bipinnate, resembling those of many Acacias 

 and Mimosas, with 15 to 30 pairs of pinnae and very numerous minute 

 leaflets (30 to 80 pairs), these linear in shape and apiculate at the apex. 

 On the petiole at some distance from the base there is a conspicuous 

 oblong nectar-gland and on the rachis, between the last pair or last 

 two or three pairs of pinnae, there is usually a minute gland, as in 

 many of the Mimosaceae. The inflorescence is in the form of spherical 

 heads of minute white flowers, borne on long slender peduncles in ter- 

 minal or axillary racemose clusters. As seen under the lens the calyx 

 and corolla are both 5-toothed, the former campanulate, the latter 

 connate to the middle. The 10 stamens are free, much exserted, the 

 anthers at anthesis bearing a minute stipitate gland. The ovary con- 

 tains several to many ovules, and develops into a broadly linear, flat, 

 leathery, or woody 2-valved legume, rough on the outer surface and 

 thickened along the sutures, and resembling that of an Inga, but without 

 pulp surrounding the seeds. The seeds are flatfish and orbicular, 

 greenish at first, at length black and glossy. 



So far as the writer can ascertain, no figure of this species has hitherto 

 been published. The accompanying illustration (fig. 1) is from a 

 photograph of a specimen in the U. S. National Herbarium (No. 847320), 

 collected on a hillside near Mayagiiez, Porto Rico, in March, 1906, by 

 John F. Co well (No. 630). 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



Piptadenia peregrina has a most appropriate specific name, for 

 it has a wide geographical range. This has undoubtedly been 

 increased by human agency. Various travellers have noticed it 

 planted near villages, as well as growing spontaneously in the 

 forests bordering the great rivers of South America. It was in 

 all probability carried to Haiti and Porto Rico by the ancestors 

 of the Tainos, whom Columbus found inhabiting those islands. 

 Including with it the very closely allied Piptadenia macrocarpa 

 Benth. and P. Cebil Griseb., its distribution may be roughly 

 indicated as follows: 



Haiti, or Hispaniola, where according to Ramon Pane and 

 Las Casas, it was called cohoba, or cogioba; Porto Rico, where 

 it is still called cojoba or cojobo (Urban), or cojobana (Cook and 



