40 EBYTHROXYLON COCA 



acute, glabrous segments. Petals 5, alternating with the calyx- 

 lobes, imbricate, with a broad claw, and a broadly oval-oblong, 

 spreading, concave, obtuse limb, pale yellow, provided at the point 

 of junction of limb and claw with an erect scale (ligula), which is 

 very deeply bifid with the two lobes crisped at the margins and a 

 reflexed tongue between them. Stamens 10, hypogynous, equal, 

 longer than the petals, erect, united at the base into a short, fleshy 

 tube surrounding the ovary, filaments white, smooth, anthers 

 oblong, yellow, basifixed. Ovary superior, ovoid, smooth, normally 

 3-celled, but usually 1 -celled the others being abortive, ovule 

 solitary, styles 3, erect, cylindrical, green, stigmas capitate. Fruit 

 a small indehiscent drupe less than \ inch long, oblong-ovoid, 

 pointed, surrounded at the base by the persistent calyx and 

 staminal tube, smooth (furrowed when dry), red, sarcocarp scanty, 

 endocarp thin. Seed filling the endocarp, with a thin testa, embryo 

 straight with a superior radicle and flat cotyledons, in the axis of 

 cartilaginous endosperm. 



Habitat. The Coca is cultivated to a very large extent in the 

 Andes of Peru and in Bolivia and Colombia, especially in the very 

 moist mild climate met with at from 2000 5000 feet above sea- 

 level or higher ; it is also now grown in parts of Brazil, the 

 Argentine States, and other countries of South America. Though 

 without doubt a native of some of the same districts, it is scarcely 

 known in a wild state ; Poeppig considered it so at Cuchero and 

 on the summit of the Cerro de San Cristobal in Peru, but Weddell 

 in Bolivia only saw the cultivated plant. 



The plantations (called " cocals ") are always formed on the 

 steep warm declivities of the mountains, the original forest growth 

 being cleared for the purpose. The largest and most productive 

 are in the province of La Paz in Bolivia. The Coca plants are 

 said to resemble in habit small black-thorn bushes, and the nearly 

 inodorous flowers are abundantly produced. 



It is scarcely possible to mistake the leaves of Coca for those of 

 any other plant, the two longitudinal arched lines on the under 

 surface being characteristic. These, which are found in several 

 other species of Erythroxylon, are not, as often described, veins or 



