MEXICAN JUMPING BEANS 



AND THE PLANT UPON WHICH THEY ARE PRODUCED. 



SOME YEARS ago I gave some account* of 

 the insect Carpocapsa saltitans (Westwood), 

 and the manner in which it produces the 

 motions of the well-known Mexican Jumping 

 Seed, or "Devil's Bean.'' The particular euphor- 

 biaceous plant upon which these seeds occur was 

 not then known or determined. The poisonous 

 nature of the plant, and the fact that it is used by 

 the Indians to poison their arrow points, has long 

 been known, and, in fact, the plant is known to the 

 Mexicans as the Arrow Weed ( Verba de pleclia). 



The shrub was described to me in a letter from Mr. 

 G. W. Barnes, then president of the San Diego Society 

 of Natural History, in 1874, as small, branchy, from four 

 to five feet in height, bearing in June and July, seeds, a 

 pod containing from three to five. The leaf was said to 

 resemble that of garambullo, being Yz inch in length 

 and '4 inch in width, a little more or less ; the bark ash 

 colored, and the leaf perfectly green during all seasons. 



Carpocapsa saltitan.s. 



a, larva; b, pupa; f, imago — enlarged, hair-lines showing natural 

 size; rf. front wing of pale var.; c, seed, natural size with empty 

 pupa skin ; f, same, showing hole of exit. — (After Riley.) 



Seeds were borne only once in two years. In a later 

 letter he stated that, according to his information, it 

 grew only in the region of Alamos, in Sonora ; that it is 

 called Brincador (Jumper) and the seeds " Brinca. 

 deros." Westwood, in his original description of Caipo- 

 capsa saltitans, states that the plant is known by the 

 Mexicans as colliguaja, and Professor E. P. Cox in. 

 formed me some years ago that the shrub has a wood 

 something like the hazel or whahoo, and that the leaf is 

 like a broad and short willow leaf. He confirmed the 

 statements as to its poisonous character and its use to 

 poison arrow-heads, and said that a stick of the shrub, 

 when used to stir the " penola " of the natives (ground 

 corn meal parched), purges. M. P. Chretien, of the 

 French Entomological Society, in a recent letter re- 

 ferred to his own rearing of it, and to the plant as a 

 Mexican euphorbiaceous plant by the name of Colli- 

 guaja odorifera (Moline), of which Croton colliguaja 



* In the Transactions of the St. Louis Academy of Science for 

 December, 1875, Vol. Ill, page CXLI. 



(Sprengel) is a synonym. This letter was still on my 

 desk when J. M. Rose, of the Botanical Division, 

 brought me specimens of plants which had recently been 

 collected by Dr. Edw, Palmer, who, with the plants sent 

 specimens of the capsules, thus rendering it quite certain 

 that the "Jumping Bean" occurs on this particular 

 plant. It turns out to be undescribed, and has been fin- 

 ally referred to the genus sebastiania, and Mr. Rose 

 intends to describe it as S. Palmeri. Naturally, as in so 

 many euphorbiaceous seeds, each seed pod splits into 

 two parts in opening, but when infested with the carpo- 

 capsa larva, the silk lining which the latter spins pre- 

 vents the seed from dehiscing. The general aspect of 

 the leaf is not unlike that of a broad-leaved willow, the 

 length varying from i to 3 inches, and the width from 

 about '/2 to \)i inches. Bentham and Hooker give Col- 

 liguaja odorifera as from South America, and I can find 

 no record of its occurring in Mexico. Comparison of 

 the specimens in the Department Herbarium shows that, 

 while evidently closely allied, colliguaja is quite distinct 

 from sebastiania, which fact renders it rather remark- 

 able that the name given by the Mexicans to the plant 

 should be identical with that adopted for the genus of 

 a South American plant, and the inference may properly 

 be drawn, that this name is applied by the inhabitants 

 indifferently to various ephorbiaCeous species which 

 occur, whether in Mexico or south of the equator. If 

 colliguaja does occur in Mexico, and is also a host of 

 Carpocapsa saltitans, it may be readily distinguished from 

 the species of sebastiania, here mentioned, by its small 

 thickish leaves, which are strongly glandular-toothed ; 

 the male flowers form long, slender spikes, with very 

 many stamens ; the capsule (seed pod) is described as 

 nearly one inch broad.* 



A closely allied species of Sebastiania coming from 

 the same localities and also yet undescribed (but which 

 Mr. Watson intends to describe as Sebastiania Fringlei) 

 and which has previously referred to the genus gymnan- 

 thes, also shows evidence of being infested with Carpo- 

 capsa, and indeed my friend, M Eugene Duges, of Guana- 

 juato, Mexico, has reared the moth from the capsules of 

 this particular species, f 



* Professor Watson informs me, since the above was written, that 

 the name Colliguay,%o far as he has been able to learn, is the Chilian 

 name forseveral Euphorbiaceous species which coiistutite the genus 

 Colligiiaja oiMoVm^. It is not a native Mexican word, but has 

 probably been introduced into Mexico by the Spaniards from Chili. 

 He confirms the statement that the Chilian genus is not found in 

 Mexico, hence M. Chretien's reference of his plant to it was pro- 

 bably due simply to the similarity of the popular name. 



t I have received from Professor Sereno Watson, of Cambridge, 

 Mass ,an interesting communication accompanied with capsules of 

 Sebastiana bilocularis and specimens of the moths bred therefrom. 

 An examination of these shows them to be of a species very much 

 smaller than Carpocapsa saltitans and to belong to another genus 

 (Grapholitha) in the same family. It may beknownas Grapholitha 

 sebastiania^, by which name I will, in the near future, character- 

 ise it. 



J 



