The first (Schultes 26359) was from a small bushy shrub culti- 
vated in the dooryard of a curandera who lived in Pepino, a 
small town near Mocoa. She regularly pruned the bush, selling 
the leaves to Indian medicine men in the nearby highland village 
of Sibundoy and to the public herb market in the city of Pasto. 
They are valued medicinally as a “tonic.” The source of the 
collection Bristol 352-A2 was undoubtedly this bush, since our 
questioning always elicited the same answer: that this curandera 
was the only source of guayusa leaves for export in the whole 
Mocoa area. 
The curandera informed us that the original material for her 
bush came from “large and ancient trees” in the very old town of 
Pueblo Viejo near Mocoa. Pueblo Viejo is now a very tiny and 
poor hamlet completely off the main highway and, in 1972 at 
least, accessible only on foot. 
We decided to make the trip. Upon arrival, we began to 
enquire about guayusa. Few people knew the plant, but the 
school teacher found that several of the school children were 
aware of the location of a number of large trees. They agreed to 
guide us. A walk of an hour and a half over rude and aban- 
doned, muddy mule trails brought us to Alto Afan. There we 
were rewarded by finding tall trees of great age which, from their 
manner of growth, indicated definitely former cultivation. The 
trees were sterile, but the natives maintained that they did flower 
and that the flowers were “tiny and greenish white.” 
The eldest farmers living in Alto Afan—some of them appar- 
ently of great age——assured us that the trees were large and old 
when they were children. 
We have not the slightest doubt that these trees are vestiges of 
the guayusa plantations described by Padre Serra, who encoun- 
tered a grove in Pueblo Viejo “of more than one league in area” 
some 200 years ago. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
Albis, M. M. Memorias de un Viajero (1854). Rev. Popayan, 26, no. 163-165 
(1936) 28-32. 
Cuervo, A. B. Coleccién de Documentos Inéditos sobre la Geografia y la 
Historia de Colombia 1V. Secc. 2a. Geografia-Viajes- Misiones-Limites. 
Casanare y el Caqueta durante la Colonia (1894). [Quoted in Patino, 
1968]. 
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