BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
CampripGe, Massacuusetts, May 27, 1955 
VoL. 17, No. 1 
A NEW NARCOTIC GENUS FROM THE 
AMAZON SLOPE OF THE 
COLOMBIAN ANDES 
BY 
Ricuarp Evans ScHULTES 
RecENtT ethnobotanical investigations in Colombia have 
greatly advanced our understanding of the narcotic and 
stimulant plants which are used in divination, witchcraft 
and medicine by the Indians of the region. The discov- 
ery, in the high and geographically isolated Indian vil- 
lage of Sibundoy, of a dangerously active narcotic tree, 
representing a new genus belonging apparently to the 
Solanaceae, may have significant consequences in several 
different fields of study. 
In early 1942, whilst I was engaged in ethnobotanical 
studies in the Putumayo of Colombia, my attention was 
drawn to a most extraordinary tree which the Kamsa and 
Inga Indians of the Valley of Sibundoy cultivate for use 
as anarcotic. Flowering material was collected, an exam- 
ination of which seemed to indicate that anew genus close 
to the Brugmansia group of Datura had been found. In 
the following years, I made several trips to Sibundoy and 
was able to gather additional material from the original 
and several adjacent trees; and colleagues, who have 
travelled in the area, have been kind enough to prepare 
specimens from still other trees both in the village of 
Sibundoy and the neighboring town of Santiago. In 
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