When Padre Serra arrived at Pueblo Viejo in December, 1756, 
he “.. . asked the... Mayor about Guayusa. He said that there 
was a great deal, and that if I so wished he would have some 
brought, because it grew in the forest somewhat outside the 
town. I told him that I wanted to go there myself and see the 
guayusa trees. He said that I could not go, that the mountain 
growth of brush was dense, but I insisted, and he assigned to me 
three Indians, each with a machete... We took with us two 
saparos or baskets ... We arrived at the guayusa grove, which is 
on a plain. The guayusa tree is the most beautiful and luxuriant 
tree that I have ever seen. It grows to be rather large in girth, so 
much so that three men could not encircle it, and tall in propor- 
tion, with a heavy crown. The trunk is ash-color, like the trunk 
of the poplar, the leaf a gentle and delightful green. So much so 
that, seeing it, I considered the hardship of the journey well 
worth while. From the first tree I came to, I took some leaves 
and began to eat them to find out their taste. I found that it was 
very agreeable, somewhat similar to tea, but finer and more 
pleasant. Seeing that there were many seedlings in the field, 
while the Indians gathered leaves. ..1... cut six internodes of 
bamboo, and, with the machete, took out eighteen seedlings 
with roots, placing three in each internode with earth from the 
same place. I took them with me and, in each village of the 
Putumayo, I planted three guayusa trees, and they all grew, so 
that, at the end of three years, they were giving many leaves. In 
this way, all the priests were provided with guayusa for their 
own consumption.” When Padre Serra finished his stay in 
Colombia and went to Peru, he took half a hundredweight of 
guayusa leaves with him, as well as a supply to display in Bogota 
and Popayan. 
That guayusa was well known in the Colombian Putumayo in 
those years is attested also by the reports of several Franciscan 
missionaries who had a mission on the Rio Putumayo slightly 
downstream from its confluence with the Rio Sucumbios 
(Cuervo, 1894; Zawadzky, 1947). “Among the medicinal plants 
cultivated by our missionaries .. . for the relief of the poor 
Indians and themselves, the guayusa tree is outstanding. A de- 
scription of this tree is being sent, at his request, to Don Pedro 
de Valencia, treasurer of the Royal Mint at Popayan. Its leaves, 
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