STANDLEY TEEES AND SHRUBS OF MEXICO 701 



4. PAULLINIA L. Sp. PI. 365. 1753. 



Refebence : Radlkofer, Monographie der Sapindaceengattung PaulUnia, Abh. 

 Akad. Wiss. Miinchen 19: 71-381. 1896. 



Scandent shrubs; leaves pinnate or ternately compound, the leaflets usually 

 dentate or lobate ; flowers polygamo-dioecious, whitish, in axillary, usually 

 tendril-bearing racemes ; sepals 5, unequal ; petals 4 ; stamens 8 ; fruit capsular, 

 o-angled or 3-winged, 1 to 3-celled, 1 to 3-seedfed. 



The crushed seeds of P. cupana Kunth and other South American species 

 are official in the United States Pharmacopoeia under the name " guarana." 

 They contain about 5 per cent of an alkaloid, guaranine, which is believed to 

 be identical with caffeine. This is used in medicine for chronic diarrhea. 

 The Indians of Brazil prepare from the seeds a beverage, which they use like 

 coffee. They also prepare a fermented drink from the guarana seeds, cassava, 

 and water. In Jamaica the juice of the leaves of some species was used as a 

 remedy for heartburn, and the bruised leaves were applied to wounds. 



The crushetl plants of various species of PaulUnia and of related genera are 

 often thrown in streams to stupefy fish. It is probably to a plant of this 

 family that Wells refers* in the following account, which is quoted here as 

 an excellent description of the procedure followed in tropical America in catch- 

 ing fish by the aid of narcotic plants, a very common and widely spread 

 practice : 



"A few days after my arrival at Lepaguare, I rode with Don Toribio to a 

 place near the junction of the Almendarez and Guayape, where a chilpate 

 fishing was to take place. On arriving at the river, we found a small party 

 of natives collected on the banks of the smaller stream, engaged in spreading 

 withes and a network of branches below a little series of falls or rapids 

 above which the fish were known to exist in great quantities, especially the 

 cuyamel, weighing often fifteen pounds when full grown. 



" The preparations completed, a few women entered the river about fifty 

 yards above the rapids, bearing with them a common hatea containing a decoc- 

 tion of a vine pounded to a pulp, and known as the chilpate (possibly the 

 Sapindus saponaria), and which may be gathered in any required quantity 

 in the plains and along the banks of the streams. This possesses the singular 

 qualitj% when mixed with the waters of a running stream, of stupefying the 

 fish, causing them to float helplessly on the surface. When carried down the 

 sti'eam, thej' are taken by hand from the network below. The signal being 

 given, this novel fishing apparatus was directed against the inhabitants of 

 Almendarez. 



"As the pale discoloration extended with the influence of the gentle cur- 

 rent, my companion shouted to me to watch its effects. All eyes were riveted 

 upon the water. In a few minutes a commotion was visible beneath the sur- 

 face, and frequent flaps from the tails of sundry inebriated fish indicated 

 the working of the drug. 



" The natives now ran below the falls to catch the victims who came floating 

 down, some with fins or tails feebly wagging above the water, others ' half-seas 

 over,' ' regularly laid out ' on their backs, and others as if under the elfects of 

 a systematic ' drunk,' struggling against the liquor, and apparently determined 

 to keep on their fins to the last gasp. There were fish of all sizes, from the 

 cuyamel down to minnows. It was the most ludicrous, and, at the same time, 

 strange scene I had witnessed in Olancho, and seemed an unpardonable corrup- 

 tion of respectable fish from their original teetotal habits." 



* W. V. Wells, Explorations and adventures in Honduras, p. 417. 1857. 



