to establish it by planting short sticks cut from the up- 
per branches met with success. The species is now in 
cultivation in the Capuchin Mission Station at Sibundoy; 
in the gardens of the Ciudad Universitaria in Bogota, 
Colombia; in the Universidad del Cauca, Popayan, Co- 
lombia; at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; in the 
greenhouses of the Department of Biology, Harvard 
University; and-at the Division of Plant Exploration 
and Introduction, Bureau of Plant Industry, Beltsville, 
Maryland. 
Methysticodendron Amesianum, known only from the 
Valley of Sibundoy, is there employed by the Inga and 
Kamsa Indians in their witchcraft. Its use in each tribe 
is restricted to several witch-doctors, and these practi- 
tioners grow the plant with special care in the neighbor- 
hood of their huts. The wild habitat of the species is said 
to be the forested slopes of the mountains to the south 
of the Valley of Sibundoy, especially the slopes of the 
botanically almost completely unknown Cerro Patascoy. 
When in cultivation, the plant is apparently the heredi- 
tary property of certain families, forasmuch as the sorcer- 
ers pass it on to the eldest son together with the secrets 
attending its use. 
Little could be learned about the use of the narcotic, 
partly because of the proximity of influential Christian 
missionaries, It would appear from what information | 
have been able to glean that Methysticodendron A mesi- 
anum, Which the Indians classify together with other in- 
toxicating solanaceous plants similarly used, is by far the 
strongest of all the narcotics of the region, surpassing in 
danger and potency even Datura arborea. A description 
of the intoxication leaves no doubt that the active prin- 
ciples are solanaceous alkaloids of the tropane series. This 
intoxication, resorted to by the witch-doctors only for 
very important or difficult cases of divination, prophecy 
[8 ] 
