SECTION 



VL 



PLANTS TIELDINO DETJGS, KNTCLUDINa NAECOTICS 

 AND OTHEE COMMON" MEDICINAL SUBSTANCES. 



The chief plants furnishing the drugs of commerce, and which 

 enter largely into tropical agriculture, are the narcotic plants, 

 especially tobacco, the poppy for opium, and the betel nut and leaf, 

 as masticatories — but there are very many others to which the 

 attention of the cultivator may profitably be directed. 1 have 

 already trenched so largely upon my space, that I cannot do that 

 justice to the plants coming under this section I could have wished. 

 There are very many, however, of which I must make incidental 

 mention. Some few medicinal plants have been already alluded to 

 in former sections, particularly in that on d^^e-stuffs, &c. 



The Coca Plant grows about four or five feet high, with pale 

 bright green leaves, somewhat resembling in shape those of the 

 orange tree. The leaves are picked from the trees three or four 

 times a year, and carefully dried in the shade ; they are then 

 packed in small baskets. The greatest quantity is grown about 30 

 leagues from Cicacica, among the Yunnos on the frontiers of the 

 Tunghos. Some is also cultivated near to Huacaibamba. 



The natives in several parts of Peru chew these leaves as 

 Europeans do tobacco, particularly in the mining districts, when 

 at work in the mines or travelling ; and such is the sustenance 

 that they derive from them, that they frequently take no food 

 for four or five days. I have often (observes Mr. Stevenson) been 

 assured by them, that whilst they have a good supply of coca 

 they feel neither hunger, thirst, nor fatigue, and that without im- 

 pairing their health they can remain eight to ten days and nights 

 without sleep. The leaves are almost insipid, but when a small 

 quantity of lime is mixed with them, they have a very agreeable 

 sweet taste. The natives generally carry with them a leather pouch 

 containing coca, and a small calabash holding lime or the ashes of 

 the moUe to mix with them. 



Cocculus indicus, or Indian berries. — This is the commercial name 

 for the berries or fruit of the Menispermum Cocculus of Linnaeus, 

 31. lieteroclitum of Eoxburgh, Animerta paniculata of Colebrooke, 



