4 i4 NOTES, OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



only have been omitted as unsuitable for the present 

 work. The rest is printed verbatim, and will, I 

 think, even to the non-botanical reader, prove not 

 one of the least interesting chapters of this volume.] 



ON SOME REMARKABLE NARCOTICS OF THE AMAZON 

 VALLEY AND ORINOCO 



In the accounts given by travellers of the 

 festivities of the South American Indians, and of 

 the incantations of their medicine- men, frequent 

 mention is made of powerful drugs used to produce 

 intoxication, or even temporary delirium. Some of 

 these narcotics are absorbed in the form of smoke, 

 others as snuff, and others as drink ; but with the 

 exception of tobacco, and of the fermented drinks 

 prepared from the grain of maize, the fruit of 

 plantains, and the roots of Manihot utilissima, M. 

 . Ivpi, and a few other plants, scarcely any of them 

 are well made out. Having had the good fortune 

 to see the two most famous narcotics in use, and to 

 obtain specimens of the plants that afford them 

 sufficiently perfect to be determined botanically, I 

 propose to record my observations on them, made 

 on the spot. 



The first of these narcotics is afforded by a climb- 

 ing plant called Caapi. It belongs to the family of 

 Malpighiaceae, and I drew up the following brief 

 description of it from living specimens in November 

 1853- 



I. BANISTERIA CAAPI, Spruce 

 (PL Exsia. No. 2712, Anno 1853) 



-Woody twiner; stem == thumb, swollen at joints. 

 Leaves opposite, 6.4 x 3.3, oval acuminate, apiculato- acute, 



