CEPHAELIS IPECACUANHA— IPECACUAN. 
Class V. 
Natural Order, 
PENTANDRIA. Order I. MONOGYNIA. 
CINCHONACEiE. THE CINCHONA TRIBE. 
Fig. 1. the interfloral bracteas; 2. the germen and calyx, styles and stigmas somewhat magnified ; 3. fruit of the natural size ; 
4. corolla laid open to show the anthers ; 5 corolla, calyx, and germen, a little magnified. 
Although the root of Ipecacuan has been employed as a valuable article of the materia medica, yet the 
botanical characters of the plant which produced it remained unknown till professor Brotero, of Coimbra, 
determined the genus to which it ought to be referred, with the assistance of observations made in Brazil, 
on living plants, by Bernardo Gomez, a resident medical botanist. From his description and figure, pub- 
lished in the sixth volume of the Linnean Transactions, which we have copied, it is called Callicocca, but it 
has since been shown to belong to the genus Cephaelis. The plant is perennial, a native of moist woods, 
near Pernambucco, Bahia Rio Janeiro, and other provinces of Brazil ; flowering from November to March, 
and ripening its berries in May. It is called Picacuan, or Ipecacuanha, by the natives of some parts of 
Brazil; poaia do mato and do botico, by those of the southern provinces; and cipo, by others, which is the 
name often given it by the Portuguese settlers. 
The root is simple, or somewhat branched, and furnished with a few short radicles ; it is roundish, most 
frequently perpendicular, but rarely slightly oblique ; from two to four inches in length, or more, and two 
or three lines in thickness : irregularly bent, externally brown, and divided into numerous prominent, un- 
equal, somewhat wrinkled rings. The stem is slightly shrubby, procumbent or creeping at the base, then 
erect, and rising from five to nine inches in height ; it is round, about the thickness of a common quill, 
I smooth, and without leaves ; below, brown and knotty, with the scars of fallen leaves, the internodes up- 
wards gradually increasing in length ; near the top, it is pubescent, green, leafy, for a year or two simple, 
then throwing out a few rather crooked, knotty runners, taking roots irregularly at the knots, and producing 
one or two new stems, about half a foot apart. The leaves are from four to eight, near the summit of the 
stem ; they are almost sessile, opposite, spreading, ovate, pointed at both ends, three or four inches long, 
one or two broad, and perfectly entire ; of a deep green above, besprinkled with roughish points, smooth, or 
rarely beset with a few scattered hairs ; underneath, pale green, and the younger ones somewhat pubescent, 
with a rather elevated rib, and alternate, nearly parallel lateral veins, curved at the ends. The petioles are 
short, channelled and somewhat hairy. At the base of each pair of leaves are a pair of interpetiolar stipules, 
deeply cut into awl-shaped divisions, sessile, shrivelling, equal to the petioles in length, and with them em- 
) bracing the stem, being the rudiments of the supplementary leaves, which when all developed, form whorls 
in the Rubiacea. The flowers are aggregated in a solitary head, a little drooping, set on a round downy 
j footstalk, terminating the stem, and encompassed by a four-leaved involucre. The florets are sessile, from 
fifteen to twenty-four in number, and separated by chaffy bractes, the length of the florets. The bractes 
are pubescent, entire, sessile, green, varying in form, sometimes long, and egg-shaped, sometimes rather 
| obtusely lanceolate, and sometimes, but rarely, in size and figure resembling the leaflets of the involucre. 
The leaflets of the involucre are subcordate, acute, entire, almost sessile, slightly waved, and hairy ; the two 
outer ones largest, and all a little longer than the florets. The calyx is urceolate, and small, superior, mem- 
branous, persistent, and with five blunt teeth. The corolla is synpetalous, the border shorter than the tube, 
woolly about the throat, swelling upwards, and divided into five ovate, acute, spreading segments. The 
filaments are short, capillary, inserted into the upper part of the tube, and bearing oblong, linear, erect 
anthers. The germen is ovate, surmounted by a thread-shaped style, the length of the tube, surrounded 
at the base with a short nectariferous rim, and terminated by two obtuse stigmas the length of the anthers. 
The fruit is drupaceous, of a reddish purple colour, becoming wrinkled and black, and containing two smooth 
oval seeds. 
It appears that the first European who brought Ipecacuanha into use, was a native of Brazil, whose 
name was Michael Tristam. He speaks of it as a remedy for dysentery. Piso afterwards describes it and 
speaks of two sorts, the white and brown. But we are indebted to Helvetius for bringing it into general 
use, under the patronage of Louis XIV. from whom he received a thousand pounds, to reveal the secret 
medicine with which he so successfully treated dysentery. Besides the brown Ipecacuanha, there is an- 
other sort, brought from Brazil, which varies in appearance from the former ; and some have supposed 
that these differences are owing to accidental circumstances, such as the place of growth, the kind of soil 
&c. ; but on the authority of M. Gomez, the common broivn Ipecacuanha of the shops is yielded by the 
