414 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 pow^erful 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 titilissima, M. 
Aypi, 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 Ex sice. No. 2712, Anno 1853) 
Description. — Woody twiner ; stem = thumb, swollen at joints. 
Leaves opposite, 6.4 x 3.3, oval acuminate, apiculato -acute, 
