S66 Account of the Poison Plants 
Anchieta, who lived so long among them, and who possessed so 
perfect a knowledge of their language. Yet, besides the mani- 
hoc, he does not mention in his letter, upon the province of St 
Paul, any other poison than that of the Timboes , the Sapin- 
dacece, of which Piso, as I have observed, had already cited se- 
veral species ; and which, like the Coque de Levant , have the 
singular property of rendering fishes torpid,— a property equally 
pointed out by Barrere, La Condamine and Adanson, both in 
the Paullinia cururu , and in the P. pinnata. 
The Abbe Vellozo de Villa-Rica, who had long travelled in 
the province of the Mines, with the view of examining its vege- 
tation, has carefully pointed out in his manuscripts the proper- 
ties of the plants which he had gathered ; and the only ones 
which he mentions as poisonous, are still a Paullinia or Timbo , 
which, he says, is fatal to mammifera, and one of his Salviniae, 
or Erva de rato , a rubiaceous plant, which is the same as one 
of MarcgrafTs Ervas de rato> and which is represented as being 
very injurious to cattle *. 
In a general list of the most remarkable Brazilian plants, the 
Abbe Casal names only one whose properties are deleterious, the 
tree called Tinguy *f*, the leaves of which, like those of the Tim- 
bo, kill fishes, and which I have determined to be an anomalous 
Sapindacea. When, afterwards, the same author treats parti- 
cularly of the vegetation of the provinces which extend between 
the Bio de la Plata, the Carynhenha, and the Bio-Doce, he still 
signalizes no other poisonous plants than the Timboes J, which 
he then confounds with the Tinguy , and a Guaratimbo , to 
which he says the insalubrity of the w r aters of the Muryalie are 
attributed. He says, indeed, when speaking of the vegetation 
of the Mines, that poisonous plants are found in that province ; 
but, as he adds that they cause fishes to die, it is plain that it is 
the Timboe which he still has in view. 
My respectable friend, the P. Leandro do Sacramento, has 
pointed out a noxious plant, which he calls the Martiusea physalo- 
des ; but it appears that he only considers it hurtful to cattleg. 
Mawe, Lukok, and Eschwegge are not botanists ; yet the lat- 
* Palicourea Marcgravii, N, 
t Cong. t. ii. p. 48. 
-f- There are two species. 
§ See Schultes, Mant, p. 226, 
