NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 415 
thinnish, smooth above, appresso-subpilose beneath ; on a petiole 
0.9 inch long. Panicles axillary, leafy. Umbels 4-flowered, 
Pedicels appresso-tomentose, bracteolate only at base. Calyx 
deeply 5-partite ; segments ligulate, eglandulose, or with only 
rudimentary glands, appresso-tomentose. Petals 5, on longish 
thick claws ; lamina pentagonal, fimbriate, the fimbrise clavate. 
Stamens 10, subunequal ; anthers roundish. Styles 3, subulate; 
stigmas capitate. Capsules muricato-cristate, prolonged on one 
side into a greenish-white semiobovate wing (1.7 x 0.6 inch). 
Habitat. — On the river Uaupes, the Iganna, and other upper 
tributaries of the Rio Negro, where it is commonly planted in the 
rogas or mandiocca-plots ; also at the cataracts of the Orinoco, 
and on its tributaries, from the Meta upwards ; and on the Napo 
and Pastasa and their affluents, about the eastern foot of the 
Equatorial Andes. Native names: Caapi, in Brazil and Venezuela; 
Cadana, by the Tucano Indians on the Uaupes ; Aya-huasca {i.e. 
Dead man's vine) in Ecuador. ^ 
The lower part of the stem is the part used. A 
quantity of this is beaten in a mortar, with water, 
and sometimes with the addition of a small portion 
of the slender roots of the Caapi-pinfma.^ When 
sufficiently triturated, it is passed through a sieve, 
which separates the woody fibre, and to the residue 
^ Caapi (the Portuguese have made it Caapim) is the Tupi or Lingoa 
Geral name for "grass." It means simply "thin leaf," and in that sense 
may correctly be applied to the Banisteria Caapi. In the same language the 
Mate of Paraguay {Ilex Paraguayensis) is called Caamirim, i.e. " small leaf," 
which is certainly not so truly said of it. The Brazilian Indians accent the 
last, the Venezuelan the first, syllable of Caapi. 
^ Caapi-pinima, i.e. "painted Caapi," is an Apocyneous twiner of the 
genus Heemadictyon, of which I saw only young shoots, without any flowers. 
The leaves are of a shining green, painted with the strong blood-red veins. It 
is possibly the same species as one I gathered in flower, in December 1849, 
an Indian settlement on the river Trombetas (Lower Amazon), and has been 
distributed by Mr. Bentham under the name of Hannadidyon aiuazo}iicii!n, 
n. sp. It may be the Caapi-pinima which gives its nauseous taste to the caapi 
drink prepared on the Uaupes, and it is probably poisonous, like most of its 
tribe ; but it is not essential to the narcotic effect of the Banisteria, which (so 
far as I could make out) is used without any admixture by the Guahibos, 
Zaparos, and other nations, out of the Uaupes. 
The Tucano Indians call this plant Cadana-pira, which means the same as 
the Tupi name. They are the most powerful tribe on the Uaupes, and the 
greatest consumers of caapi ; but all the other tribes on that river — and they 
are about a dozen — use it in the same way. 
