and Q. Fieldu are used as spices for chocolate drinks, to 
which they impart a pungent, slightly peppery taste. 
In the large native market in Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, a 
number of interesting local plants are offered for sale as 
medicines, charms, foods, and clothing materials. One 
of the most striking of these economic plants is Quara- 
ribea funebris. 
The great central plaza of this market has three stalls 
where drugs are sold. In each of these drug-stalls, the 
herb-sellers or herbolarios offer scores of plant remedies 
for sale; each stall is plentifully supplied with dried 
flowers of Quararibea funebris. The Zapotecs of the 
Valley of Oaxaca use a decoction of these flowers as an 
aromatic cough remedy, but by far the greater part of 
the supply is utilized to flavor chocolate drinks. 
Smaller village markets in the vicinity of Oaxaca City 
also sell the flor de cacao, but I have searched for it in 
vain in the important markets in Teotitlin del Camino 
in northeastern Oaxaca and in several markets in the 
State of Puebla. A small quantity of these flowers was 
found in an Indian shop in the remote Chinantec village 
of San Pedro Yolox in the District of Ixtlan, Oaxaca: 
here, however, the spice was obviously obtained in trade 
from the Valley of Oaxaca, for Quararibea funebris is a 
tree of the warm, dry desert, not of the cold, damp, 
forested mountains of the interior. Similarly, Quararibea 
Junebris must be received in trade in the town of San 
Ildefonso Villa Altain the District of Villa Alta, Oaxaca, 
where many of the inhabitants spoke to me of its use in 
chocolate drinks. Nevertheless, | was unable to find it 
in the prosperous market of this large Zapotec town. 
The use of Quararibea funebris as a flavoring agent in 
chocolate drinks is not confined to the Indian population 
of Oaxaca. The mestizos and Spanish inhabitants also 
enjoy the combination of the aromatic flavor of the flow- 
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