imprecisely applied to diverse genera and species of Menisper- 

 maceae, which often are employed in curare preparation and 

 collected for export to the pharmaceutical industry. 



Radix pareirae bravae: Root or Rhizome'.' 



Historically, the "radix" of "pareira hrava" has been inter- 

 preted as the "root" of the plant (literal translation), an apparent 

 plant morphological misnomer for the part actually used, which 

 hitherto has not been challenged in the botanical or pharmaceut- 

 ical literature. Although no distinction among root, rhizome and 

 aerial stem o{ pareira hrava has appeared, all published descrip- 

 tions of the so-called, "root o{ pareira ' clearly are more charac- 

 teristic of Chondodendron rhizomes, than of its roots and aerial 



stems. 



Pomet's original description and illustration of "pareira 

 hrava" root (1692) clearly suggests a rhizome rather than a true 

 root, as is evident in the 1712 translation of his account: "that 

 the said Root, as it grows in the Ground, shoots forth Branches 

 charg'd with Leaves, altogether like the Vine which creeps along 

 Walls and upon Trees." Squibb (1877) also referred to "the part 

 which I perhaps mistakenly considered to be the root, but is 

 without much doubt the substance described by the older wri- 

 ters", perhaps thinking that this might not be a true root in the 

 botanical sense. Hanbur}' (1873) described "roots bearing some 

 leaves", and notes that "In Mr. Francis' drug there are young 

 roots having the remnants of green aerial stems arising from 

 their upper part. . . ". By definition, of course, roots never bear 



leaves. 



Even more recently, this apparent misapplication of the term 

 ""vooC io pareira hrava rhizomes has been perpetuated. Morton 

 (1977) thoughtfully presented a whole-plant morphological diag- 

 nosis for Chondodendron tonientosuni. which she considers to 

 be the true pareira hrava, but referred to the plant part used 

 medicinally as the "root", rather than rhizome. However, the 

 morphological description which she gives for the rhizome of 

 Chondodendron tomentosum is virtually identical to all histori- 

 cal descriptions of the so-called "pareira root", as contrasted 

 with its very different, woody stem. 



31 



