the early stages of his five years of field work on the upper 
Rio Negro in Amazonian Brazil, that Spruce first learned 
of caapi amongst the Tukanoan tribes of the region. It 
was employed to induce, for prophetic and divinatory 
purposes, an intoxication characterized, amongst other 
strange syndromes, by frighteningly realistic colored 
visual hallucinations and a feeling of extreme and reck- 
less bravery. Unlike many early reports of newly dis- 
covered narcotics, Spruce’s contribution included a 
precise determination of the botanical source of the drug. 
Finding caapi cultivated along the Rio Negro, he 
noted that ‘“‘there were about a dozen well growing 
plants... twining up to the tree tops... and several 
smaller ones. It was fortunately in flower and young 
fruit; and I saw, not without surprise, that it belonged 
to the ... Malpighiaceae ...*’ A collection in full 
flower (Spruce 2712) was taken from the liana, and he 
drew up a description of the species from living speci- 
mens. He allocated the species to the genus Banisteria, 
calling it Banisteria Caapt from the vernacular name. 
This description was published by the botanist Grisebach. 
As taxonomic understanding of the family grew in the 
present century, the American specialist, C. V. Morton, 
ascertained that this species-concept could not with pre- 
cision be included in Banisteria, and, in 1931, he trans- 
ferred it to the genus Banisteriopsis. The liana is, accord- 
ingly, now correctly called Banisteriopsis Caapi (Spruce 
ex Grisebach) Morton. * 
Even a century ago, Spruce’s thinking was, at least in 
part, along chemotaxonomical directions. He mused: 
*Banisteriopsis Caapi (Spr. ev Griseb.) Morton in 
Journ. Wash. Acad. Sci. 21 (1931) 485. 
Banisteria Caapt Spruce ex Grisebach in Martius FI. 
Bras. 12, pt. 1 (1858) 43. 
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