430 ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



parried by notes as to the uses to which the flowers were applied, 

 but Mr. Cook, in his journal, states that the flowers of an Anona were 

 offered for sale both fresh and in the form of dried black petals 

 curled up on the edges and heavily veined inside. The}' had a pleas- 

 ant, spicy odor. He describes the fresh flowers as having the sepals 

 and outer petals light green and the inner thicker petals of a pale 

 dull salmon color and breaking with a bright orange-colored frac- 

 ture. No specimens of the plant were collected at this time, but on 

 May 30, 1906, two years afterward, Mr. Cook secured specimens of 

 an Anonaceous plant at Jacaltenango, Guatemala, which he did not 

 associate with the flowers he had seen in the Coban market. On 

 examining these specimens in the United States National Herbarium 

 (sheet No. 574411) the identity of the plant was revealed. The 

 xochinacastli of the Aztecs was no other than the plant described by 

 Dunal from the drawings of Mocirio and Sessv as Cymbopetahim 

 pendulifloritni. 



The discovery was announced in a paper read before the Botanical 

 Society of Washington, February 7, 1911. : The accompanying illus- 

 tration, drawn by Mr. Theodore Bolton from the specimens collected 

 by Mr. Cook and from the photograph of Mr. Doyle, will serve for 

 comparison with that of Hernandez, which is also reproduced. The 

 inaccuracy of Hernandez's figure consists chiefly in the fact that the 

 upper flowers shown by him have none of the petals revolute, or 

 incurved along the margin, while the lower flower has all six petals 

 incurved, suggesting the fruit of the aromatic star-anise of Japan. 

 It was a simple matter to test the qualities of the petals by eating 

 one of them. The taste was pungently aromatic and suggested that 

 of a nutmeg, or perhaps a cubeb. 



The Xochinacaztli (Gymbopetcihim penduliflorum) is endemic in 

 the forests of northwestern Guatemala and across the border in the 

 Mexican State of Chiapas. The use of its flowers as a spice gradually 

 died out throughout the greater part of Mexico with the introduction 

 of cinnamon from the East Indies, which is now, together with vanilla, 

 almost, universally used for flavoring chocolate. The small tree grows 

 in regions where there is a marked dry and a rainy season, usually 

 associated with coffee, and it could in all probability be cultivated 

 wherever coffee will thrive. Both on account of the fragrance of its 

 flowers and for their application in cooking as a delightful condiment 

 it is suggested that this plant be cultivated. 



1 See Safford, W. E. " The Rediscovery of the Xochinacaztli of the Aztecs, with notes 

 on Mexican Anonaceae." Science, N. S., vol. 33, p. 470. March 24, 1911. 



