OBSERVATIONS ON THE CUICHUNCHULLI. 147 
with a plant called Featina, that is found in the neighbourhood 
of Bogota and at Enemocan, and was formerly described by 
the celebrated botanist Don Francisco Mutis, under the name 
of Viola Parviflora, a title that has since been judiciously 
changed by another distinguished botanist, Monsieur Ven- 
tenat, into that of Ionidium Parviflorum. This latter plant 
is said to have been also used with advantage in the Mai de 
San Lazaro; but as the account of that trial appears not to 
have been written by a medical man, and has not even been 
authenticated by any signature, it cannot at present claim at- 
tention. I have, notwithstanding, been induced to compare 
the botanical characters of this plant with those of the Cui- 
chunchulli of Riobamba, and as I find that, although of the 
same genus, they belong to different species, I shall subjoin 
their respective specific differences in order to prevent their 
being mistaken the one for the other. 
The Cuichunchulli of Riobamba is a small humble plant, ge- 
nerally growing flat on the ground both in cold and in mode- 
rately warm temperatures on the sides of Chimborazo, and 
always in a dry and rocky soil, its roots so insinuating them- 
selves between the stones that it is necessary to loosen these 
with a spade or other instrument in order to draw them out 
entire. It bears plenty of leaves, which seldom exceed five- 
eighths of an inch in length, and also of flowers one-eighth of 
an inch at most in height, delicate in structure, the petals of 
which are of a violet or purplish colour with the exception of 
the labellum, which is rose-coloured at the back, but white on 
the inner surface. The capsules are yellowish, one-tenth of 
an inch in diameter, and the seeds dark brown and shining. 
Cattle sometimes browse on the plant, but only for the pur- 
pose, as the Indians believe, of purging themselves, since it 
does not grow in sufficient quantity to serve them as a pas- 
turage. The natives of the country use it among themselves 
as a very active medicine that vomits and purges at the same 
time. 
Upon obtaining from Mr. Marcucci dried samples of the 
plant just mentioned, which I had reason to think was yet 
