It is now known that a number of species of Virola are 
employed hallucinogenically in Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Ve- 
nezuela: V. calophylla, V. calophylloidea, V. cuspidata, V. 
elongata, V. Pavonis, V. surinamensis and V. theiodora (Schultes 
and Hofmann 1979; 1980). 
The hallucinogenic constituents are believed to be present in 
the almost colourless exudate from the inner surface of the outer 
bark which appears as soon as the bark is stripped from the tree. 
This exudate rapidly darkens to a reddish brown in a typical 
Oxidase type reaction and dries to a hard shiny mass. In 
specimens of bark dried for chemical examination, it appears as 
a sticky, dark reddish brown, gummy material which has been 
shown to contain tryptamines and other indolic hallucinogens 
(Agurell, Holmstedt, Lindgren and Schultes 1968; 1969). 
It has been observed, however, that the only reason for 
scraping the inner surface of the bark (phloem) is to obtain all 
traces of cambium which might adhere to it. The drug itself, 
whether snuff or pellets, is prepared from the cambial sap only, 
which is first quickly boiled, causing coagulation of protein and 
perhaps polysaccharides, and then simmered slowly to reduce 
the volume to near dryness. This gives the sticky brownish 
material from which the “resin” snuff or pellets are prepared. The 
whole process is similar to that used for the isolation of other 
natural products from the cambium of other trees, such as 
coniferin from gymnosperms, for example; except that today 
one would employ ethyl alcohol or acetone, rather than heat, to 
destroy enzyme activity which might otherwise act adversely on 
the desired product (Schultes and Swain 1976). 
Virola Aublet 
A tropical American genus of 45 to possibly 60 species of 
tropical forest trees widely distributed in Central and South 
America, Virola is abundant, especially in the Amazon, where it 
is esteemed as the source of an hallucinogen, in native medicine 
and as the basis of an arrow poison (Schultes and Holmstedt 
1968, 1971; Prance 1970). 
Virola is generally known as cumala in the Peruvian Amazon: 
various species are distinguished as cumala blanca, cumala roya, 
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