380 



ginia, which it is pretended is the s. sarsaparilla 

 of Linneus, may be cultivated in the open air, 

 wherever the mean temperature of the winter 

 rises above six or seven degrees of the centigrade 

 thermometer* ; but those species that possess 

 the most active virtues belong exclusively to the 

 torrid zone, and require a much higher degree 

 of heat. In reading the works of Clusius, it can 

 scarcely be conceived, why our writers on the 

 materia medica persist in considering a plant of 

 the United States as the most ancient type of 

 the officinal species of the genus smilax. 



We found in the possession of the Indians of 

 the Rio Negro some of those green stones, known 

 by the name of the Amazon stones, because the 

 natives pretend, according to an ancient tradi- 

 tion, that they come from the country " of the 

 women without husbands (Cougnantainsecouima), 

 or women living alone {Aikeambenano^c) ." We 



* The winter temperature at London and Paris is 4*2° and 

 3 , 7°j at Montpellier, 6 7° ; at Rome, 7*7°; in that part of 

 Mexico, and the Terra Firma, where we saw the most active 

 species of the sarsaparilla growing, (that which supplies the 

 trade of the Spanish and Portugueze colonies) from twenty to 

 twenty -six degrees cent. The roots of another family of mo- 

 nocotyledons (of some cyperaceae) possess also diaphoretic and 

 resolvent properties. The carex arenaria, the c. hirta, &c. 

 furnish the German sarsaparilla of druggists. According to 

 Clusius, Europe received the first sarsaparilla from Jucatan, 

 and the island of Puna, opposite Guayaquil. 



f This word is of the Tamanac language j they are the 

 Sole Donne of the Italian missionaries. 



