426 
NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
CHAP. 
Niopo Smtff and the Mode of using it 
II. PiPTADENiA Niopo, Humboldt 
Synonyms — Acacia} JViopo, Humb., J^el. Hist. ii. p. 620; 
ejusdem Nov. Gen. Amer. vi. p. 282; DC. Prodr. ii. p. 471. 
Ijiga Niopo, Willd. 
Description. — Tree, 50 feet by 2 feet, with muricated bark, 
otherwise unarmed. Leaves bipinnate ; pinnae twenty-four pairs ; 
pinnules very numerous, minute, Unear, mucronato-apiculate, 
ciUated, sparsely sub -pubescent. An oblong gland on petiole 
above base ; another between terminal pinnae. Racemes axillary 
and terminal ; pedicels twin, each bearing a small globose head 
of white flowers. Corolla slightly emersed from 5-angled calyx. 
Stamens 10; anthers tipped with a gland. Pod linear, sub-com- 
pressed, apiculate, 7-12-seeded, sub-constricted between seeds. 
Seeds flattish, green. 
Habitat. — In the drier forests of the Amazon, and along its 
tributaries, both northern and southern ; on the Rio Negro, 
throughout its course ; also at the cataracts of the Orinoco ; both 
wild and planted near villages. (Santarem, fl. Amazonum, Spruce, 
Exsicc. No. 828, etiam Janauarf, fl. Negro, No. 1786.) Native 
names : Parica in Brazil ; Niopo in Venezuela. 
We owe our first knowledge of Niopo snuff, and 
of the tree producing it, to Humboldt and Bonpland, 
whose brief account of it is thus condensed by 
Kunth : " Ex seminibus tritis calci vivae admixtis 
fit tabacum nobile quo Indi Otomacos et Guajibos 
utuntur" [Synopsis, iv. p. 20). In the modern 
niopo, as I saw it prepared by the Guahibos them- 
selves, there is no admixture of quicklime, and that 
is the sole difference. My specimens of the leaves, 
flowers, and fruit agree so well with Kunth's de- 
scription of Acacia Niopo that I cannot doubt their 
being the same species ; especially as I have traced 
the tree all the way from the Amazon to the Orinoco, 
and found it everywhere identical, although it bears 
a different name on the two rivers, as is commonly 
the case where the same plant or animal occurs on 
