Botanical Museum Leaflets 

 Fall 1986 



Vol. 30, No. 4 



THE CARYOCARACEAE AS A SOURCE OF 

 FISH POISONS IN THE NORTHWEST AMAZON 



Kazuko Kawanishi 1 , Robert F. Raffauf 2 



and Richard Evans Schultes 3 



The Caryocaraceae is a family of tropical American trees. The 

 family has two genera — Anthodiscus and Caryocar — with some 

 25 species. It is believed to be allied to the Theaceae. The family 

 has recently been revised by Prance and Freitas da Silva (1). 



Caryocar Allamand ex Linnaeus 



The fifteen species of Caryocar, trees or rarely shrubs or suf- 

 fruitices (herbaceous with a woody stem base), occur in the 

 humid tropics from Costa Rica and Colombia throughout low- 

 land South America; the genus is particularly well represented in 

 the Amazon and the Guianas. 



The fruit and seeds of several species are valued by local popu- 

 lations as food, and some interest in the group has been in 

 evidence as undeveloped plants of potential commercial value 

 (2). Perhaps the best known is Caryocar brasiliense Camb. of 

 central Brazil, the seeds of which yield an oil said to be an 

 excellent cooking oil, a butter substitute and a source of fat for 

 home soap-making; the fruits are used to prepare a native 

 liqueur (3). In other parts of northern South America, the sauri 

 trees or sauri-nut trees — C. amygdaliferum Mutis and C. nucife- 

 rum L. — are likewise the sources of edible fat, and C. nuciferum 



'Present address: Kobe Women's College of Pharmacy, Motoyamakita-Machi, 

 Higashinada-Ku, Kobe 658, Japan. 



2 Medicinal Chemistry Section, College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions, 

 Northeastern University, Boston, MA; Research Associate, Botanical Museum, Harvard 

 University, Cambridge, MA. 



3 Charles Edward Jeffrey Professor of Biology and Director, Botanical Museum, Har- 

 vard University, Emeritus, Cambridge, MA. 



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