269 
the Southern parts of Brazil. 
have written upon the same subject, and join to their observa- 
tions the fruit of my own researches, I shall find, that the num- 
ber of the families of phanerogamous plants, that produce nar- 
cotic species, the only ones which should naturally engage my 
attention, reduces itself to twenty, namely, the Menispermaeae, 
Sapindacese, Papaveraceoe, Terehinthaceae, Leguminosae, Rosa- 
cea?, Umbelliferae, Cichoraceas, Rhodoraceae, Apocineae, Sola- 
nacese, Scrophularineae, Euphorbiacese, Conifers, Aristolochiae, 
Iridese, he. Casting a glance upon the species which I have 
collected in a space of about 45 Portuguese leagues, from Be- 
lem to the Ibicuy, a space in which the Rio-de-Santa-Anna 
flows, I only find plants belonging to six of the above families, 
namely, the Euphorh i acece, ( Euphorbia papillosa , Microstaehys 
ramosissima , Caperonia linearrfolia , N.) ; Apocineae , (among 
others the Asclepias mellodora , and Echites petrcea , N.) ; one 
Sapindaceous plant, Solanacece , Leguminosoe , and two Scro - 
pliularhiete. It is, therefore, to these plants, twenty-one in 
number, that my conjectures must refer ; but, as the Legumi - 
nosae , EuphorbiaceoBj and Apocineae , do not belong to the ge- 
nera among which narcotic plants have been peculiarly desig- 
nated, I shall confine my search principally to the four Solanece 
( Nicotiana acutiflora , Solanum guaraniticum , Fabiana tliymi- 
folia , Nier ember gia graveolens , F.) ; the single Sapindacea 
(PauUinia australis , N. the two Scrophularinea (Stemodia 
palustris and gratiol&folia, N. ) ; and of these it will be upon the 
Sapindacea that I shall make my suspicion chiefly fall, because 
I already know the narcotic effects which several vegetables of 
the same family produce in these countries ; and because the 
species which I have signalized was of all those which I have 
mentioned, that which flourished nearest the wasp-nest the honey 
of which was so nearly fatal to me. 
I cannot close this account, without adding some obser- 
vations which are mot without importance. Dr Benjamin 
Smith Barton thinks that the poisoned honey injures the bees 
themselves ; but this is by no means probable, or at least it 
could not do so to them in the same degree as to man. This 
honey, in fact, has been sucked by the bees ; it has resided in 
their intestines ; they have only collected it, by returning a 
thousand and a thousand times to the same flowers ; and if it 
VOL. xiv. -no. 28. A Pit i l 1826. 
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