NARCOTIC PLANTS AND STIMULANTS SAFFOKD. 419 



white flowers of Ilex vomitoria are borne in axillary clusters having 

 short smooth peduncles, and its flowers are distinguished from those 

 of the allied species in having obtuse instead of acute calyx-teeth. 

 In the pistillate flowers the 4 stamens are shorter than the petals, 

 while in the staminate they are longer. The fruit is in the form of 

 red globose drupes 5 or 6 mm. in diameter, usually containing 4 

 slightly ribbed nutlets. Plate 15 is the photograph of a specimen 

 collected near Austin, Tex., May 27, 1904, by Mr. F. V. Coville, 

 Botanist of the Bureau of Plant Industry. 



GUARANA. 



Guarana is a substance somewhat resembling chocolate prepared 

 from the bitter seeds of a Sapindaceous climber by certain tribes of 

 Indians of Brazil and Venezuela. It owes its stimulating virtue to an 

 alkaloid (guaranin) chemically allied to caffein. Like chocolate it is 

 reputed to have aphrodisiac properties. In Venezuela it is known by 

 the name of cupana. Although the plant from which it is derived is 

 known as PaulUnia sorhilis^ a name applied to it by Martius, 

 Spruce, has shown that it is identical with the previously described 

 PaulUnia cupana of Humboldt, Bonpland and Kunth and that ac- 

 cording to the rules of priority the latter name takes precedence. 



Though normally a twining plant it is kept pruned in cultivation 

 to the size of a currant bush. It has pinnate alternate leaves com- 

 posed of 5 coarsely serrate leaflets, with the apical tooth retuse. The 

 inflorescence consists of clusters of small white flowers growing in 

 racemes from the axils of the leaves. The fruiting capsules are 

 obovate to pyriform tapering at the base to a long neck or stipe and 

 shortly beaked at the apex. When fresh they are yellow and tinged 

 with red near the apex, with the thin pericarp smooth on the outside 

 and woolly on the inner surface, 3-valved, but dehiscing only along 

 two of the sutures. The solitary black glossy seed is nearly half 

 covered by a white cup-shaped aril. 



Martius gives a description of the process of making guarana from 

 the seeds of this plant by the Indians of the Rio Mauhe, Brazil. As 

 prepared by them it is a very hard paste of a chocolate brown color 

 almost devoid of odor. For use this paste is reduced to a fine powder 

 and mixed with sugar and water to make a stimulating drink. The 

 seeds, which mature in October and November, are removed from the 

 capsules and dried in the sun until the fleshy white cups are in such 

 a state as to be easily rubbed off with the fingers. They are then 

 poured into a heated stone mortar, where they undergo a process of 

 parching and are ground to a fine powder, which is mixed with water 

 or exposed to the night dew and kneaded into a paste. When the 

 process is finished a few seeds either whole or broken into fragments 



