racemes of rose-coloured papilionaceous flowers. It grew on the 
rocky banks of the cataracts”. 
Recently a third species in the genus, M. inpae, has been 
described by Dr. William Rodrigues from the region of Manaus, 
Amazonas, Brazil. (Rodrigues, 1975). 
METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION 
The data were gathered as part of an energy flow study of the 
village of Yapu. All foods brought into the village were routinely 
weighed on a spring scale, capacity 30 kg. The edible portion 
was determined as percent edible by weight, using a scale accu- 
Pate to 1B: 
Collections of all important food plants were made in the 
general area of the village. Voucher specimens are deposited in 
the herbarium of the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Bogota, 
Colombia (COL); a duplicate set is deposited in the Economic 
Herbarium of Oakes Ames, Botanical Museum of Harvard Uni- 
versity, Cambridge, Massachusetts (ECON). 
Foods of unknown nutrient composition were prepared in the 
field for later biochemical analysis in Bogota. Indigenous 
methods of preservation, such as drying, smoking, and ferment- 
ing, were used when possible. In other cases, benzoic acid was 
used as a preservative at a concentration of 3% by weight. 
Dietary surveys were conducted on randomly chosen subjects. 
The method used was a 24-hour weighed dietary survey. The 
observer accompanied each subject for a 24-hour period and 
weighed all food portions on a 500 g. capacity dietary scale 
accurate to | g. Food eaten at a site where the dietary scale was 
not available was weighed on a 16 oz. spring scale or carefully 
estimated from a table of mean weights of food portions. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE UPPER PAPURI 
Erisma Japura is known in Tatuyo as “bati” and in Lingua 
Geral as “yapura”5. Its pale yellow flowers appear in the dry 
5 The name “japura” by Spruce (1908:399) is probably a variant of the pronunciation or 
spelling of “yapura™ as the glide /y/ in Latin America alternates with the fricative / zz 
(Pers. comm. Arthur P. Sorensen, Jr.). 
i3 
