stem pieces are included within parcel No. 3 (Ahuia rufescens = 

 "pareira hrava rouge"; Plate 5). Thirdly, sample No. I from Dr. 

 Squibb is not the same plant as contained in the other three 

 parcels, and although it is congeneric with parcel No. 3, it 

 appears to be a different species of Ahuta from that of parcel 

 No. 3 (Plates 3 6; Table 1). Whether the certificate of authentic- 

 ity really amounted to anything or not remains unclear, since the 



4 



piece with the green ribbon was not located in parcel No. I. If 

 Squibb and the importers were correct, however, in their belief 

 that Specimen parcel No. 1 and the certified piece with the green 

 ribbon were of the same material shipped from Para, then the 

 certificate was invalid, at least with regards to botanical taxon- 

 omy. The certificate claimed that this material was Cissampelos 

 Pareira. when in fact it is a species o{ Ahuta. 



Perhaps the most amusing and ironic fact, in regard to 

 Squibb's final question, is that none of the material in his ship- 

 ment to Harvard belongs to the genus Chotulodendron. To my 

 knowledge, the only species of curare-plants of the Menisperma- 

 ceae ever exploited commercially by E.R. Squibb & Sons, Inc. is 

 Chondodendron tomenlosuni, the preferred source of d-tubo- 

 curarine. Although E.R. Squibb seems to have had the keen eye 

 of a professional botanist and the pharmacognostic insight of a 

 19th century physician, — in suspecting that the pareira hrava 

 which he and his colleagues really required was Chondodendron 

 rather than Cissampelos, — he appears never to have received 

 any specimens of what modern botanists consider to be genuine 

 pareira hrava, from either Europe or South America. 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 



Many thanks are due to Dr. Alberta M.W. Mennega (Rijksu- 

 niN'ersiteil, Utrecht, The Netherlands) for her kind cooperation 

 and prompt taxonomic determination of Squibb's commercial 

 specimens of pareira hrava. 1 am also grateful to Professor 

 Richard Evans Schultes (Director, Harvard Botanical Museum) 

 for his encouragement and for financing the preparation of pho- 

 tographic plates, with a grant from the National Institutes of 

 Health, for research on the Ethnopharmacology of the north- 



37 



