CEPHAELIS IPECACUANHA. 
149 
The Cephaf.lis Ipecacuanha is a perennial plant, a native 
of South America, and flowers in the months of December, January, 
February and March. It is found growing in moist shady situations 
in the forests of Brazil, particularly in the provinces of Pernam- 
buco, Rio Janeiro, Mariannia and Paulensia. In the language of 
South America, ipecacuan signifies vomiting root, hence it is 
applied to the roots of various plants that have the property 
of exciting vomiting ; from this circumstance has arisen the confusion 
which for a long period prevailed, concerning the specific plant 
which furnished the officinal roots. According to Professor Bro- 
tero's description,* the plant which furnishes the roots of commerce, 
(i. e. the gray and brown Ipecacuanha) is the Callicocca Ipecacu- 
anha ; but Willdeaow having united the genus Callicocca with that 
of the Cephaelis, the species in question is now referred to the latter. 
The Cephaelis Ipecacuanha is a low plant, rising to the height ^of 
from six to nine inches ; it has a simple or somewhat branched root, 
furnished with a few small short radicals ; the root is three or four 
inches in length, and two or three lines in diameter, it is of a roundish 
form, and bent in diff"erent directions, externally brown, and annulated 
with numerous prominent, rough, unequal ridges ; the stem is pro- 
cumbent at the base, about the thickness of a small quill, round, 
smooth, of a brownish colour, the lower part leafless and somewhat 
knotty, but leafy toward the upper part, and somewhat pubescent ; 
after the first year it throws out a few knotty runners, which take 
root at the distance of eight or ten inches, and send up new stems ; 
the leaves are three or four inches long, ovate, pointed at both ends, 
of a deep green on the upper surface, pale, downy, and veined on 
the under side, they stand almost sessile and opposite ; the lower 
leaves are caducous, so that not more than six or eight remain on the 
upper part of the stem when it flowers : at the base of each pair of 
leaves, are placed a pair of stipules deeply cut into awl-shaped sec- 
tions, they are withering, and embrace the stem ; the flowers termi- 
nate the stems, and are aggregated into a solitary head, on a round 
downy footstalk, somewhat drooping, and encompassed by a four- 
leaved involucre ; the florets are from fifteen to twenty-four in num- 
ber, interspersed with small bracteas, which are sessile, entire, ovate, 
or obtusely lanceolate, and pubescent; the calyx is very small, 
superior, persistent, and divided into five acute segments ; the co- 
rolla is monopetalous, the border shorter than the tube, and divided 
* Vide Transactions of the Linusean Society, vol, vi. 
VOL. I. 
