XX 
Sophora L. 
A shrub of dry areas of the American Southwest and adjacent 
Mexico, Sophora secundiflora (Ort.) Lag. ex DC. yields the so- 
called mescal beans or red beans. Mexican and Texan Indians 
formerly employed these beans in the ceremonial Red Bean 
Dance as an oracular and divinatory medium and for visions in 
initiation rites (LaBarre 1959; Schultes 1937a). Its use died out 
in the United States with the arrival of peyote, a much safer 
hallucinogen. Mescal beans, which contain cytisine, (Izaddoost 
1975; Keller 1975), are capable of causing death by asphyxiation 
(Howard 1957). The pharmacology of cytisine has been reported 
(Zachowski 1938). Historical reports of the mescal bean go back 
to 1539, but archaeological remains suggest their ritualistic use 
earlier than 1000 A.D. (Adovasio and Fry 1976; Campbell 
1958). 
Sophora, with some 50 species, occurs in tropical and warm 
temperate parts of both hemispheres. 
Lythraceae 
Heimia Link & Otto 
Heimia salicifolia (HBK.) Link & Otto has been valued in 
Mexican folk medicine since early times. Known as sinicuichi, 
its leaves are wilted, crushed in water, and the juice set in the sun 
to ferment. The resulting drink is mildly intoxicating. Usually 
devoid of unpleasant after effects, it induces euphoria charac- 
terized by drowsiness, a sense of shrinkage of the surroundings, 
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