Myristica is a genus of some 120 species of the Old World 
tropics. The only commercially important species is M. fragrans, 
native of the Moluccas and source of two products: nutmeg 
from its seeds, and mace from the aril surrounding the seed. 
NITROGENOUS PRINCIPLES 
1. B-CARBOLINES 
Malpighiaceae 
Banisteriopsis C.B. Rob. & Small 
In wet tropical forest areas of northern South America, the 
aborigines use as hallucinogens several species of Banisteriopsis 
containing harmala alkaloids: B. Caapi (Spr. ex Griseb.) Mort., 
B. inebrians Mort. An intoxicating drink is prepared from the 
bark of the stems in the Amazon of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, 
Ecuador and Peru, the Orinoco of Venezuela and the Pacific 
coast of Colombia. It is variously known as ayahuasca, caapi, 
yajé, natema, pindé, or dapa. Usually, only one species enters 
the preparation, but frequently admixtures of other plants are 
employed (Friedberg 1965; Rivier and Lindgren 1972; and 
Schultes 1957, 1961b). 
A genus of some 100 species of tropical America, Banisteriop- 
sis is taxonomically still rather poorly understood. The classifi- 
cation of B. Caapi and B. inebrians is particularly confused, 
primarily because of the sparcity of fertile material for study of 
these infrequently flowering jungle lianas, even though the 
earliest botanical attention to this drug plant dates from 1852, 
when it was first encountered in northwestern Brazil by the 
explorer Spruce (Schultes 1957, 1966b, 1979a,b). 
The chemistry of these hallucinogenic species of Banisteriop- 
sis has been more critically investigated than the taxonomy, yet 
the failure of chemists to insist upon botanically determined and 
vouchered material for analyses has created chaos. Earlier 
workers, isolated alkaloidal constituents which they named 
telepathine, yageine and banisterine from plants referable proba- 
bly to B. Caapi. All of these alkaloids were eventually identified 
as harmine (VI). More recent examination of botanically au- 
thenticated material of this species has established the presence 
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