plants, it seems to grow only in association with human habita- 
tion, either presently or in the past (Schultes: “Discovery of an 
ancient guayusa plantation in Colombia” in Bot. Mus. Leafl. 
Harvard Univ. 27 (1979) 143). 
The view that this plant has been in association with man fora 
long period of time is also reinforced by speculation that //ex 
Guayusa may possibly represent only a cultivated variant of /. 
paraguariensis. It was, in fact, Loesener himself who, in describ- 
ing guayusa, first pointed out the possible relationships between 
L. Guayusa and I. paraguariensis: “Species ob flores adhuc igno- 
tos valde dubia. Sed si re vera de Ilice agitur, species /. paragua- 
riensis St. Hil. et 1. nitidae (Vahl) Maxim. sine dubio affinis. 
Folia maiora et acutius acuminata quam in affinibus.” /. para- 
guariensis, known as yerba maté or Paraguay tea, grows wild in 
the mountains of southern Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina; it is 
also cultivated in these countries. 
My interest in //ex Guayusa was sparked by a conversation 
with Prof. Richard Evans Schultes of the Botanical Museum of 
Harvard University in 1979. I was preparing an ethnobotanical 
expedition to Ecuador, and he suggested that a search for 
guayusa flowers be included in my plans. Prof. Schultes told me 
of the plant’s meager taxonomic representation, its interesting 
use as a caffeine-containing plant used as a snuff in ancient 
Bolivia (Schultes: “//lex Guayusa from 500 AD to the present” in 
Etnolog. Stud. 32 (1972) 115-138) and its importance as a 
medicinal and ritual tea amongst contemporary Indians in Ecua- 
dor (Villavicencio, M.: Geografid de la Republica del Ecuador 
(1858) 371-374; Patino, M.: Guayusa—a neglected stimulant 
from the eastern Andean foothills” in Econ. Bot. 22 (1968) 
311-316). 
Soon after arriving in Quito in August 1979, I discovered that 
the question of guayusa’s ability to flower had been answered by 
a collection in the herbarium at the Universidad Central of that 
city. On October 4, 1975, an expedition led by Ing. Agr. Alberto 
Ortega, Professor of Botany at this university, discovered flow- 
ers on a tree growing near a market in Sacua, Ecuador. Thanks 
to Ing. Ortega, I have examined this material. It consists entirely 
of staminate flowers. This collection represents the first flowers 
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