**A perennial herb, somewhat fleshy and succulent, the stems 
terete, pale greenish, glabrous or nearly so, ascending or pro- 
cumbent or prostrate, sometimes greatly elongate, as much as 2 
meters long or more, and subscandent; leaves alternate, on very 
short, stout petioles, mostly rhombic-lanceolate and 5-9 cm. 
long, acute or acuminate, acute at the base, entire, green and 
glabrous above, pale beneath and inconspicuously and sparsely 
pilosulous or glabrate, the lateral nerves obsolete; involucres in 
small, almost naked, terminal cymes, campanulate-turbinate, 
4-lobate, glabrous, the lobes obovate, fimbriate, the glands 
transverse-ovate, the appendage semiorbicular, crenulate, white 
or whitish.” 
The range of Euphorbia lancifolia is now known to include 
southeastern Mexico, Guatemala, Belice, El Salvador and 
Honduras. It seems to be most abundantly represented in 
Guatemala where it has been recorded from Alta Verapaz, 
Escuintla, Peten, Izabal, Santa Rosa, Suchitepequez, Re- 
talhuleu, Guatemala, Sacatepequez, Quezaltenango, San Mar- 
cos, Quiche and Huehuetenango. It prefers damp thickets, 
occasionally growing, however, in pine forests or in open 
fields. Ixbut may be found at many different elevations: at 
1,000 feet or less on the warm lowland areas of the Pacific coast 
in the Departments of Escuintla, Suchitepequez and Re- 
talhuleu — to areas up to 5,800 feet and sometimes higher in the 
Departments of Quezaltenango, San Marcos and the Alta Ver- 
apaz, in the cool highlands. 
The vernacular names of Euphorbia lancifolia have been 
reported as ixbut and sapillo (2), but the plant is usually known 
throughout Guatemala, and even beyond the borders of the 
country, as ixbut. It was introduced to Cuba, where the name 
has been recorded as isbut. 
Ixbut may have originated in the warm, humid drainage 
basin of the region known today as the Departamento del 
Peten, Guatemala — possibly near San Benito, southwest of 
Lake Petén Itza (6). (See map, Plate 28) 
Ixbut plants may be readily multiplied by root cuttings. In 
the Coban region (Alta Verapaz), ixbut is often cultivated as a 
medicinal herb near villages, so it will be readily available as a 
galactagogue. 
Standley and Steyermark (2) report: *‘Rather curiously, it is 
claimed in Coban that the plants often cause the death of cattle 
280 
