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Richard Evans Schultes se nos presenta como un testigo externo y cualificado para hablar de la riqueza de la flora colombiana. En un análisis cuidadoso recorre la historia botánica de Colombia y hace énfasis sobre la escasez de estudios sistemáticos publicados hasta la primera mitad del siglo XX. Muestra con gran nitidez este período crítico en el que se fundaron Herbarios, Institutos y Revistas en favor de la institucionalización de la botánica y la Academia en Colombia, logros asociados a protagonistas como Pérez Arbeláez, Cuatrecasas, Alvarez Lleras y Dugand. También dio cuenta del desarrollo del Herbario Nacional y se preguntó por el número de especies que realmente componen la Flora de Colombia. Para Schultes, Colombia posee la flora más diversa del Neotrópico y la mayor variedad de biomas y dio sólidos argumentos al respecto. Sin descuidar a Mutis y a Triana se centró en el período floreciente que él mejor conoció, al detallar familias y géneros que habían sido estudiados por los diferentes especialistas (Compuestas, Gramíneas, Leguminosas, otras) y se refirió al incremento de especies según intervalos de años. También cotejó el trabajo de Martius y de Spruce con el de sus recientes exploraciones en la Amazonía colombiana. Acudió, asimismo, a la opinión experta de colegas como Cuatrecasas, Dugand y Standley, y con pulcritud matemática, comparó cifras de pliegos, especies, tiempos y áreas, para sustentar su propia estimación de las especies de fanerógamas que crecen en Colombia que el cifra en 50.000 taxones. Concluye su escrito al citar de nuevo a Spruce y trata de estimular la exploración y estudio de las selvas colombianas. Schultes dedica este brillante trabajo “al éxito del III Congreso Sudamericano de Botánica que tendrá lugar en Bogotá en el año 1953”, que con esmero preparaba E. Pérez Arbeláez y que fuera inexplicablemente suspendido por motivos aparentemente políticos. José Luis Fernández Alonso, Ph. D.Real Jardín Botánico - CSICMiembro Correspondiente

NUMEROUS DEFINITIONS OF ETHNOBOTANY exist. The widely employed and simplest definition explains it as the study of the knowledge and use of plants in primitive societies in the past and present. In view of the many fast-developing specific subdivisions of this interdisciplinary field, it seems necessary to adopt a wider definition. A more inclusive definition might be: the study of the uses, technological manipulation, classification, agricultural systems, magico-religious concepts, conservation techniques and general economic and sociological importance of plants in primitive or pre-literate societies. Ethnobotany is certainly not new. The earliest humans must have been incipient ethnobotanists. It began when man first of necessity classified plants: those of little or no utility; those which were useful in many practical ways; those alleviating pain or otherwise ameliorating illness; and those that made him ill or killed him. He must have wondered at the unworldly effects of the few psychoactive species, and he could explain their extraordinary properties only by assuming that they were endowed with spiritual power from supernatural sources. It has been proposed that man's early experiences with hallucinogens was a principal factor leading to the origin of religious concepts. It was not long before the knowledge and manipulation of the properties of plants became associated with certain individuals, and these early medicine men or shamans ultimately acquired great powers. This endowment continues to-day in most, if not all, primitive societies where this specialist is the repository of vast knowledge of plants and their properties and is privy to the secret and superstitious rituals connected with their use. However, many members of the general population in primitive societies are conversant with the properties of their food, medicinal and other plants of daily use. Many indigenous groups around the world--the Indians of the Amazonian regions, for example--are literally masters of their ambient vegetation as a result of inherited knowledge. This knowledge--of great potential value to humanity as a whole--is unfortunately doomed to extinction with the rapid acculturation and westernisation in many parts of the globe where indigenous peoples can still live peacefully without disruption, from road-building, airstrips, missionary pressure, warfare, tourism, industrial penetration, dam-building, local greed on the part of settlers or various efforts to "civilise" the natives. The loss of this knowledge, and of the natives themselves, will be a grave hindrance to progress in many aspects of environmental conservation. Realization of the seriousness of this impending loss has given rise in recent years to the need for ethnobotanical conservation. One example of the value to conservation of ethnobotanical knowledge of the natives lies in the study of their acquaintance with the properties of bioactive plants and their numerous subspecific variants or ecotypes. Although techniques of ethnobotanical research will differ according to the kind and condition of culture of the aboriginal people and the type of ecology in which they live, there seems to exist an underlying similarity in the relationship of ethnobotany to environmental conservation. I shall use examples from my work in the past 47 years in the Colombian Amazonia, since this relationship is clearly manifest in my studies of the medicinal, toxic and rubber yielding plants of this northwestern corner of the great Amazon Valley. The Amazon basin supports the world's largest rain forest, 2,700,000 square miles, with an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 species of higher plants or perhaps 15% of the world's flora. The number or species and their diversity increases towards the westernmost part of the hylaea. The Colombian sector, protected from easy penetration by rapids and waterfall in most of its rivers, has not suffered the extensive acculturation and wanton environmental devastation that many other parts of the basin have had and are experiencing. …

The discovery of rubber is undoubtedly one of the greatest Indian contributions to modern civilisation.(1) I have been a rubber tapper; I am a rubber tapper. I live in stagnant, muddy swamps in the loneliness of the forest with my crew of malarial men cutting the bark of trees that have white blood like that of the gods.(2) ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO, one of the most significant events in human history took place--the domestication of the rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis. This achievement has had far-reaching economic, sociological and even humanitarian results. In 1876, the British imported quite legally--contrary to widely disseminated tales--70,000 seeds of this rubber tree collected in the eastern part of the Brazilian Amazonia. They were transported to England and planted in greenhouses of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Some 2800 seeds germinated, and the eventually surviving young trees were sent to Ceylon and later to Singapore (2, 7, 12, 13, 14). Almost all of the extensive rubber plantations of the former British and Dutch colonies in Ceylon and southeast Asia and smaller plantations in sundry parts of Africa and elsewhere are based on this one species (2, 7, 8, 19). II HEVEA BRASILIENSIS, native to the Amazon region south of the Amazon River, belongs to the Spurge Family; there are nine other species of Hevea. Two other species, Hevea Benthamiana and Hevea guianensis, yield latex that gives a rubber somewhat inferior to that of Hevea brasiliensis (16). The latex of all the other seven species of Hevea are either hard to coagulate or provide a weak rubber of no use. Even some of these inferior latices might, however, one day be of value to the fast developing plastics industry as "fillers"--chemicals that may alter the physical properties of the new elastomers (15). Botanists still are unsure of the function of latex in the life of the rubber trees, but it may serve a number of purposes. Some 37,000 species of plants in numerous families contain latex, a white or yellowish liquid. Only 7000 contain a substance called caoutchouc that will give usable rubber. It is difficult to realise that one species--Hevea brasiliensis--now supplies approximately 98% of the world's natural rubber, mostly from well-run plantations in Asia, Africa and Ceylon (8). The latex of the commercial rubber tree is an emulsion of complex hydrocarbons which are long-chain molecules made up of hydrogen and carbon in units called isoprene. The latex of Hevea brasiliensis contains up to 6000 of these units; it is a polyisoprene (1, 2, 7, 9). Most of the man-made substitutes--the elastomers popularly called synthetic rubber--have molecules with much fewer isoprene units. Some are better than natural rubber for certain purposes: e.g., when there is contact with petroleum products. But they are still inferior for tires which consume about 75% of the world's production of natural rubber (1, 8). III THE EARLY AMAZONIAN INDIANS had apparently very little use for rubber, according to brief reports by missionaries and explorers. In some tribes, apparently, small waterproof bags coated with rubber were made (6). A major interest in the rubber trees of several species was as a source of food. The seeds of Hevea are toxic, containing a cyanide, but when soaked in water and boiled, this poison is leached out, and the seed can be employed as a food (11). Its use as a nutrient was first reported in 1775 by the French botanist Aublet in his book on the plants of French Guiana in which he described the genus and its first species: Hevea guianensis. At about the same period, in 1770, a British chemist discovered that rubber could erase pencil marks--hence the English word "rubber" (2). When the Portuguese settled in the Amazon, they began to fashion a few articles of rubber; and in 1775, King Joseph of Portugal fostered the manufacture of shoes of rubber in Belem, at the mouth of the Amazon River. …

Deforestation in Amazonia is eliminating wild genepools of many crop-plants. Wild or spontaneous populations of at least 50 perennial crops are at risk, including the Rubber tree and Cacao, as well as several crops emerging from relative obscurity, such as Peach-palm (which is now being planted extensively for palmito production), Annatto (which produces a natural red dye), and Brazil-nut.

A historia do uso, identificacao botânica, e constituintes quimicos conhecidos deJusticia pectoralis (Acanthaceae), uma das plantas halucinogenas sul-americanas, sao revistos.

Tropical rain forests offer enormous prospects for the discovery of new drugs for use in Western medicine. The Amazon supports 80,000 species of higher plants and a diverse Indian population. Focusing attention on those plants used as medicines by indigenous peoples is the most efficient way of identifying the plants that contain bioactive compounds. There is an urgent need for more ethnobotanists and ethnopharmacologists to be trained to document as much information as possible before it and the plants are lost through destruction of the rain forest and acculturation of the indigenous peoples. Ethnobotanical studies have identified plants documented by early travellers; these include Paullinia yoco and Ilex guayusa which are used as stimulants and have been shown to be rich in caffeine. Studies of the hallucinogen prepared from Banisterioposis caapi have shown that the native people know which plants to add to the mixture to lengthen and intensify the intoxication produced by the beta-carboline alkaloids in the plant. Three major snuffs are used in the Amazonia; the plants from which they are derived have been identified. One of the snuffs also has antifungal and curare-like activities; chemical analysis on the active principles has not been done. Several plants are considered as prime candidates for scientific study as sources of useful chemicals for medicine or industry. These include some used to prepare teas or other infusions for treatment of various symptoms of senile dementia.

The Indians of the northwest Amazon respect age and try to care for those suffering from senile dementia. At least 25 species of plants are employed in treating Alzheimer's disease or similar problems. The plants are administered orally as teas of the leaves or roots and over a period of several days to numerous weeks. The plants are from 15 phanerogamic families. Little chemistry is known of most of the species. In view of the current interest in Alzheimer's disease and related problems these species might profitably be investigated.

Data are now available on the antifungal use of Virola from four countries and some 14 different tribes of Indians in these countries who employ the Virola exudate for the same or similar purposes. Three of the five methods of ethnobotanical investigation proposed by Schultes and Swain in 1976 have been employed in this ethnobotanical research. Furthermore, both of the present authors have successfully employed this antifungal treatment themselves. Given that deep fungal infections of the skin are often considered incurable with medications currently in use, further laboratory analysis of Virola resin should be undertaken as soon as possible.

(1993). Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs: Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 269-270.

The book is the translation of the diaries of Hipolito Ruiz, early botanical explorer of South America, who spent 11 years exploring the towns, villages, fields, forests, and mountains of Peru and Chile from 1777 to 1788. Newly translated by Richard Evans Schultes, the Journals offer valuable information for modern-day readers. Descriptions of about 2000 plants, fully indexed in the book, make the Journals an extensive botanical resource, while observations of landscape, weather, and native cultures create a unique historical picture for students of geography, geology, anthropology, and colonial history. As a historical find, the Journals are a remarkable document. Recounting the first of a series of Spanish expeditions to the New World, the story they tell is one of great sacrifice and hardship in the name of science. Bad weather, fatigue, and all the dangers of travel in the wilds were endured, as well as disasters including the death of artist Jose Brunete and the loss of a manuscript to fire. In the scientific realm, Ruiz's studies may be considered ground-laying work in the discipline of ethnobotany. By relating the uses of plants by natives, such as the extraction of quinine for the treatment of malaria, to his description of the plant in its native environment, Ruiz employed methods central to modern science.

Amazonian Brazil, by Richard Spruce in April 1851; it is the type specimen: Spruce 1465. The field notes are in Spruce's handwriting, whereas the name of the plant was written by Bentham.*** The field notes read: "Tree 40 ft. x 12 in. or more; wood hard, Lv. whitish beneath. Corolla yellowish. Anthers red. Habitat in sylvis Capoeiras prope Manaos, prov. Alto Amazonas. From the seeds of this a noted snuff is made. Parici, lin. geral." The term paricda' is a word borrowed from the Tupi-Guarani or Nhengatd language, and is widely employed today throughout the northwest Amazon of Brazil to refer to a psychoactive or hallucinogenic snuff. The same name is applied to the intoxicating snuffs prepared from the leguminous Anadmnanthera peregrina (L.) Spegazzini (syn: Piptadenia peregrina (L.) Bentham) and from several species of the myristicaceous genus Virola- V. calophylla Warburg, V. calophylloidea Markgraf, V. elongata (Spruce ex Benth.) Warburg and especially V. theiodora (Spruce ex Benth.) Warburg. This record of Dimorphandra parviflora as the source of an hallucinogenic snuff has, apparently, not hitherto been published. The foliage of Dimorphandra parviflora is bipinnate and resembles that of Anadenanthera peregrina. It is, however, highly unlikely that a meticulously observant botanist like Spruce would have made a mistake in the determination of his specimen, particularly when he was already familiar with A. peregrina. The seeds of the two plants-the part utilised in snuff-making in both species-are different: those of Dimorphandra being tannish and usually rather elongated; those of Anadenanthera glossy black and orbicular to suborbicular. Furthermore, the pods of the former species are short with three or four, possibly five, beans, whereas the latter normally has elongated pods with up to 12 or more seeds. Little is known of the chemistry of Dimorphandra, a genus of some 25 species of the humid tropics of the Americas. Murad et al. (1969) and Murad & Gazinelli