what similar, especially in the production of fantastic 
visual hallucinations. It should be emphasized, however, 
that there is actually little similarity in appearance be¬ 
tween mescal buttons and the dried pilei of Basidiomy- 
cetes: the shrivelled crowns of Lophophora Williamm 
assume the drab color of a dried mushroom, it is true, 
but a heavy cushion of closely placed areolate tufts of 
silky hairs densely clothes the upper surface of the dried 
cactus-head, while the fibrovascular region is clearly visi¬ 
ble on the lower surface. It seems improbable, therefore, 
that either the historians or the Indians were deceived 
by a superficial color-resemblance. 
However, Safford (18,19) based his conclusions: l) 
on the apparent absence from Mexico of narcotic or in¬ 
toxicating mushrooms and 2) on the supposed similarity 
between mescal buttons and dried mushrooms. He con¬ 
cluded that the Aztec Indians, who gathered for use 
both peyote and teonanacatl and whose botanical know¬ 
ledge and powers of observation were keen, had failed 
to recognize the hard, wrinkled, brown mescal buttons 
as a part of the soft, succulent, green peyote-plant of 
the desert. The former, he assumed, they called teonana¬ 
catl ', the latter peiotl. 
Furthermore, Safford had at his command a number 
of the detailed descriptions of the early writers on Mex¬ 
ico. He failed to see in these, however, any overwhelming 
negation of his identification of teonanacatl. As LaBarre 
(14) aptly states: “Safford identifies the two by a some¬ 
what casual use of his evidence and mystifies himself with 
the consistent contradiction offered by all the early Span¬ 
ish writers to his assumption. He composes the contra¬ 
diction by assuming that the Aztecs did not recognize 
the dried, discoidal button as the same plant as the green 
cactus; despite overwhelming etymological evidence, he 
[ 46 ] 
