pittier: origin of chicle 433 



My first doubts originated in Venezuela in 191 7, when a friend, 

 with a certain botanical knowledge acquired under the late Dr. 

 Ernst, reminded me of the fact that chide is one of the export 

 products of the Orinoco Valley, adding that he had seen one of 

 the trees from which the gum is extracted and did not believe 

 it to be Achras Zapota, but perhaps a Mimusops, not unlike the 

 pendare, the purvio, or the masarandu, from which the Vene- 

 zuelan balata gum is obtained. 



At the time, however, I gave little .attention to the subject: 

 everybody said that the chicle was obtained from the 

 nispero tree and nispero, that is to say, Achras Zapota, it had to 

 be. But very recently, in May of the present year, on the oc- 

 casion of an official exploration of the region between the 

 rivers Motagua and Chamelecon in Guatemala and Honduras, 

 respectively, I came face to face with one of the so-called 

 ndsperos, which I could not, at first, recognize as a species 

 of Achras. The tree, nearly one meter in diameter at the base 

 and at least 35 meters high, was met on the first hills on the trail 

 from Los Amates to El Paraiso, beyond La Francia, in the Molhd 

 valley. At first sight, it had the appearance of a Mimusops, but 

 the numerous, freshly detached corollas which covered the soil 

 under the tree completely lacked the dorsal lobular appendages 

 which are characteristic of this genus. Of course, this indicated 

 a close relationship with Achras Zapota, except that the corollas 

 were rotate or almost so, while in the latter they are tubulose ; 

 but the fact that Achras has been so long considered as a mono- 

 typic genus helped on the moment to discard the idea of its be- 

 longing to this genus. 



At the time the study of the floral details could not well 

 be pursued further, so I simply resolved to obtain more com- 

 plete materials, and meanwhile started on another line of in- 

 vestigation. I had with me no less than six monteros, i. e., woods- 

 men, some from Honduras, the others from Guatemala, and five 

 of them had worked at the extraction of chicle. On my asking 

 about the name of the tree, the unanimous answer was nispero; 

 all agreed, too, that the fruit was edible, like that of the chicoza- 

 pote; but when I asked whether this nispero and the chicozapote 



