OBSERVATIONS  ON  SOME  PRODUCTIONS  OP  MEXICO.  501 
adopted  without  sufficient  investigation.  It  will  make  a  good 
subject  for  an  inaugural  essay. 
Barbudilla.  Contrayerva. 
These  names  are  applied  to  very  different  plants ;  the  former, 
named  specially  barbudilla,  is  the  Dorstenia  Contrayerva,  L.  ; 
the  other,  called  julimes  by  M.  Schaffner,  is  Asclepias  Contray- 
erva of  the  unedited  Flora  Mexicana.  I  have  explained,  in  the 
" Histoire  Abregee  des  drogues  simples,  ii.  300,"  that  the  true 
Contrayerva  of  the  shops  is  Dorstenia  braziliensis,  Lamarck,  and 
Nees  v.  Essenbeck,  and  not  the  Dorstenia  Contrayerva  which 
grows  in  Mexico.  What  most  interests  me  is  to  find  through  M. 
Merck  that  the  root  of  Asclepias  Contrayerva  has  been  recognized 
as  the  substance  always  sold  in  Europe  under  the  name  of  Me- 
choacan  root.  This  resemblance  also  struck  M.  Schaffner,  who 
writes  in  1851 : 
"  I  have  received,  under  the  name  raiz  de  Michoacan  veriable, 
a  root  which  resembles  in  no  respect  that  sold  in  Germany  as 
white  Jalap.  Sometimes  it  seems  to  me  that  this  root  (of  the 
Asclepias)  peeled,  does  not  differ  from  that  formerly  known 
under  the  name  of  white  Meehoacan  root.''' 
M.  Schaffner,  writing  to  me  in  1851,  says  : 
"  A  thing  which  excites  my  curiosity  is  to  see  the  root  named 
raiz  de  Michoacan,  which  comes  directly  from  the  province  of 
that  name,  has  none  of  the  characters  attributed  by  you  to  the 
root  which  circulates  in  Europe  under  the  same  name.  In  visit- 
ing various  Pharmacies  in  Mexico,  I  have  found  under  the  name 
of  Dorstenia  of  the  country,  or  barbudilla,  the  root  of  the  Ascle- 
pias Contrayerva,  very  similar  to  that  you  have  described  under 
the  name  of  meehoacan.'" 
Notwithstanding  the  confusion  which  appears  between  barbu- 
dilla and  Asclepias  Contrayerva,  it  remains  not  the  less  true  that 
the  substance  sold  in  Europe  under  the  name  of  Meehoacan  is 
the  root  of  Asclepias  Contrayerva.  I  will  speak  now  of  that 
which  appears  to  be  the  true  Meehoacan. 
Mechoachan,  Male  Jalap. 
It  is  a  long  time  since  I  have  given  the  opinion  that  the  Me- 
