will be varied. Many of the data will be culled from my 
own ethnobotanical field notes, especially from those 
gathered in northwestern South America from 1941 to 
the present time. A wealth of mostly unpublished re- 
ports from labels on herbarium specimens has accrued as 
a result of a search through the more than two million 
sheets in the Harvard University Herbaria carried out 
under the direction of Dr. Siri von Reis Altschul of the 
Botanical Museum of Harvard University and supported 
by grants from Smith, Kline & French Company, by Eli 
Lilly Company and (mainly) by the National Institutes 
of Health (von Reis, S. ‘‘Herbaria: sources of medici- 
nal folklore’? Econ. Bot. 16 (1962) 283-287). Still more 
data are occasionally found in old or rare books and manu- 
scripts, and information of this kind is often overlooked, 
if indeed it is even available to research workers. It is 
hoped that a combination of these and possibly other 
sources of information may materially advance our un- 
derstanding of the frontier that still exists for intensive 
and extensive studies of the toxic plants of the tropical 
parts of the Western Hemisphere. 
While I realize that investigations of toxic plants 
amongst the cryptogams, especially the fungi, is almost 
untouched for the American tropics, I must restrict my 
studies to the spermatophytes. It is to be hoped that one 
day soon a study of the rich and virgin field of toxic 
cryptogams of the New World tropics will be adequately 
undertaken. 
ARISTOLOCHIACEAE 
Aristolochia medicinalis R. 17. Schultes sp. nov. 
IFrutex scandens, extensus. Caulis volubilis; rami 
volubiles, teretes, inconspicue striolati, fusco-brunneo, 
cum cortice tenui, minutissime puberulente. Folia 
exstipulata, chartacea, oblonga, apice acuminata, basi 
valde cordata, petiolata (petiolo robusto, plus minusve 
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