curate nature may be looked for from the usual type of 
anthropological field investigation. 
In utilizing data found on herbarium labels, caution 
must be taken. Fora field botanist might jot down ‘‘used 
as a narcotic’’ on the basis of information supplied by a 
native and without sufficient checking or without himself 
having seen the plant thus employed. Nevertheless, such 
data may be of great value as an orientation in problems 
as complex as the one at hand. 
A further drawback—and a serious one—to the use of 
sterile specimens for botanical identification is the diffi- 
culty, in a genus of such vegetatively similar species, of 
arriving at a satisfactory determination. 
Usually, all we have to work with in studying the mal- 
pighiaceous narcotics is sterile material. The cultivated 
plants seem rarely or never to flower (probably because 
of constant cutting back), and the forest lianas blossom 
sporadically and are seldom found in flower by collectors. 
In one hundred years, for example, we have only one 
flowering collection of Banisteriopsis Caapi from the field 
(that is, excluding plants brought to flower in experi- 
ment stations or botanical gardens), and that is the type 
collection made by Spruce. My determinations of most 
of the older specimens concur closely with the identifica- 
tions made by Dr. C. V. Morton, who specialized in the 
Malpighiaceae. 1 have identified the numerous sterile 
herbarium specimens considered below with reserve, even 
though I have put in more than ten years of field study 
on the problem. As the result of prolonged study of liv- 
ing plants, one acquires some familiarity with certain of 
the variations which these species may show under dif- 
ferent natural habitats. But I must further point out that 
this long period of field study in itself has made me rather 
cautious about drawing categorical and far-reaching con- 
clusions from what herbarium material we have at hand 
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