herbarium in Brussels. Claes made several collections of 
the plant from which the Indians prepare yoco. Of these, 
one (Claes 30) is in excellent flower, one (Claes 24) has 
partly disintegrated remains of flowers, and two are ster- 
ile. There is an appreciable variation in leaf size, but all 
of the collections may be referred without hesitation to 
Paullinia Yoco. The flowering specimen (Claes 30) has 
the smallest leaves and is the specimen which De Wilde- 
man has annotated as representing Pau/linia scarlatina. 
It has the same characteristic short, stiff inflorescence as 
the type. Claes 24 has much longer inflorescences, but 
the same woody tendrils as the type. The other speci- 
mens had no determinations, but I have annotated all 
the material as Paullinia Yoco. 
There apparently is no information on the Claes speci- 
mens relative to the different ‘‘kinds of yoco’’ to which 
Zerda Bayon, Klug and Schultes have referred (cf. 
Schultes l.c. 811). 
Through the kindness of Professor W. Robyns, direc- 
tor of the Brussels Herbarium, I was able to obtain an 
excellent biographical article on the life and work of the 
late Florent Claes. Claes, it would seem, carried out 
rather extensive explorations for plant introduction. The 
vast amount of work which he did _ has certainly not re- 
ceived merited notice. For this reason, I am calling at- 
tention to the article which appeared in a publication not 
widely circulated, at least in the New World: L. Pyn- 
aert: ‘‘Florent Claes: Botanist belge, explorateur,’”’ 
Publication de botanique d’ Agrément, Bulletin mensual 
de documentation de botanique horticole et d’horticul- 
ture pratique (Régions tempérées et tropicales) (1987) 
Bruxelles. Pynaert’s article reviews in some detail much 
of the work which Claes accomplished during his several 
trips to Colombia and considers the discovery of yoco at 
length (lc. 44-46). 
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