614 safford: cosmos sulphureus 



matoxylon brasiletto, called uitzquauitl, or huitzcuahuitl, they 

 obtained a purple, and other shades, resulting from various addi- 

 tional ingredients. The use of this wood is now world wide. 

 From the twisted pods of Caesalpinia coriaria, called nacasco- 

 lotl, they obtained a fine black. These pods, known commer- 

 cially as cascalote or dividivi, are now an important source of 

 tannin. Another dye-plant, interesting on account of its old- 

 world affinities, was their xiuhquilitl, Indigofera suffruticosa, 

 more commonly known as Indigofera anil, and very closely allied 

 to Indigofera tinctoria, from which most of the commercial indigo 

 is derived; and another beautiful blue, called mohuitli, was ob- 

 tained from Jacohinia mohintli and /. umbrosa. 



One of their colors, however, which all writers on Mexico 

 mention, has hitherto remained unidentified. This was called 

 xochipalli, or ''flower-paint," a name also applied to the plant 

 itself. It is the object of the present paper to announce its 

 rediscovery and to give a description, by means of which the 

 plant can be identified with certainty. The most remarkable 

 fact in connection with this plant is that, although it was de- 

 scribed and figured more than three centiu"ies ago, it has re- 

 mained hitherto unidentified. It is widely spread in Mexico. 

 In the present State of Guerrero there is a town, Xochipalla, the 

 name of which signifies ''the place where the xochipalli abounds. "^ 

 The celebrated traveller, Gemelli-Careri, who visited this town 

 in 1697, while en route from Acapulco to Cuernavaca, passed 

 through a neighboring district where the girls gathered xochipalli 

 flowers and made of them a cosmetic paste. The Proto-Medico, 

 Dr. Francisco Hernandez, who was sent by his sovereign Philip 

 II in 1570 to New Spain to study its resources, gave the follow- 

 ing description of this plant, illustrated with a rude« drawing, a 

 fac-simile of which is here shown (fig. 1). 



"Xochipalli is an herb six cubits in length, with sinuous (pin- 

 natifid) leaves somewhat like those of Artemisia, stems a finger 

 thick, flowers resembling those of the cempoalxochitl [Tagetes 

 erecta L.], but smaller and of a reddish yellow color, and roots 

 slender and long. It is widely spread in the tierras calientes, 



* >See Robelo, Diccionario de Aztequismos, pp. 444, 447, 449, 1904. 



