palm). The lower tube being inserted in the snuff-box and the 
knobs in the nostrils, the snuff is forcibly inhaled, with the 
effect of thoroughly narcotising a novice or indeed a practiced 
hand, if taken in sufficient quantity ....°> The apparatus 
which Spruce described and which he purchased at Maypures 
on the Orinoco may still be seen at the Royal Botanic Gardens 
at Kew. An illustration of this parephernalia is herewith pub- 
lished. 
There are also at Kew — in the Economic Botany 
Museum — specimens of the pods of Anadenanthera pereg- 
rina which Spruce collected in 1854 on the Colombo- 
Venezuelan border at the Savannahs of Maypures. These pods 
were purchased from an old Guahibo Indian who was grinding 
the seeds for preparation of the snuff. 
In our desire to analyze as many specimens of seeds of this 
species from as many localities as possible, we expressed to the 
authorities at Kew our interest in submitting some of Spruce’s 
120-year old material to modern chemical examination. We 
owe a debt of gratitude to the former director, Dr. John 
Heslop-Harrison, the former Keeper, Dr. J. P. M. Brenan, Dr. 
Tony Swain, formerly director of the Biochemical Laboratory 
and Miss Rosemary Angel of the Economic Botany Museum 
for finding and making available to us the necessary pods and 
seeds. The analytic study is detailed below. 
We were encouraged to examine this important material 
collected by Spruce for several reasons (6,7). 
First: we wanted to compare its analysis with that of very 
recently collected material. 
Second: Spruce was far ahead of the customs of botanical 
explorers of his time in being willing to collect material of 
medicinal and narcotic plants for chemical analysis. 
Third: we had been successful in analyzing material of the 
hallucinogen Banisteriopsis Caapi of the Malpighiaceae, col- 
lected by Spruce on the Rio Uaupés of Brazil in 1852 (8). This 
material was examined in April 1968 in the Karolinska In- 
stitutet in Stockholm, 114 years after its collection. The yield of 
alkaloids was 0.4% as against 0.5% for a recently collected 
specimen of the same species. The alkaloid content of Spruce’s 
material consisted exclusively of harmine, as contrasted with 
aio 
