|
Guaraná
Guaraná ( from the Portuguese ''guaraná'' ), ''Paullinia cupana'', syns. ''P. crysan, P. sorbilis'') is a climbing plant in the family Sapindaceae, native to the Amazon basin and especially common in Brazil. Guaraná has large leaves and clusters of flowers, and is best known for the seeds from its fruits, which are about the size of a coffee bean. As a dietary supplement or herb, guaraná seed is an effective stimulant: it contains about twice the concentration of caffeine found in coffee beans (about 2–8% caffeine in guarana seeds, compared to about 1–3% for coffee beans). The additive has gained notoriety for being used in energy drinks. As with other plants producing caffeine, the high concentration of caffeine is a defensive toxin that repels herbivores from the berry and its seeds. The colour of the fruit ranges from brown to red and it contains black seeds that are partly covered by white arils. The colour contrast when the fruit is split open has been compared w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mawé People
The Mawé, also known as the Sateré or Sateré-Mawé, are an indigenous peoples in Brazil, indigenous people of Brazil living in the state of Amazonas (Brazilian state), Amazonas. They have an estimated population of about 13,350. The Sateré-Mawé were the first to domesticate and cultivate guaraná, a popular stimulant. Name The name "Sateré-Mawé" comes from ''Sateré'', meaning "caterpillar of fire", and ''Mawé'', meaning "intelligent and curious parrot". They are also called Maué, Mawé, Mabue, Maragua, Sataré, Andira, Arapium. Language The Mawé speak the Sateré-Mawé language, which belongs to the Tupian languages, Tupian family. A grammar book was developed for the language in 1986. Initiation rites The Sateré-Mawé people intentionally use bullet ant stings as part of their initiation rites to become a warrior. The ants are first rendered unconscious by submerging them in a natural sedative and then hundreds of them are woven into a glove made out of leaves (whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sapindaceae
The Sapindaceae are a family of flowering plants in the order Sapindales known as the soapberry family. It contains 138 genera and 1858 accepted species. Examples include horse chestnut, maples, ackee and lychee. The Sapindaceae occur in temperate to tropical regions, many in laurel forest habitat, throughout the world. Many are laticiferous, i.e. they contain latex, a milky sap, and many contain mildly toxic saponins with soap-like qualities in either the foliage and/or the seeds, or roots. The largest genera are ''Serjania'', ''Paullinia'', ''Allophylus'' and '' Acer''. Description Plants of this family have a variety of habits, from trees to herbaceous plants to lianas. The leaves of the tropical genera are usually spirally alternate, while those of the temperate maples ('' Acer), Aesculus'', and a few other genera are opposite. They are most often pinnately compound, but are palmately compound in ''Aesculus'', and simply palmate in ''Acer''. The petiole has a swollen ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carl Sigismund Kunth
Carl Sigismund Kunth (18 June 1788 – 22 March 1850), also Karl Sigismund Kunth or anglicized as Charles Sigismund Kunth, was a German botanist. He is known for being one of the first to study and categorise plants from the Americas, American continents, publishing ''Nova genera et species plantarum quas in peregrinatione ad plagam aequinoctialem orbis novi collegerunt Bonpland et Humboldt'' (7 vols., Paris, 1815–1825). Born in Leipzig, Kunth became a merchant's clerk in Berlin in 1806. After meeting Alexander von Humboldt, who helped him attend lectures at the University of Berlin, Kunth became interested in botany. Kunth worked as Humboldt's assistant in Paris from 1813 to 1819. He classified plants that had been collected by Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland during their journey through the Americas. When Kunth returned to Berlin in 1820, he became Professor of Botany at the University of Berlin, as well as the Vice President of the Berlin botanical garden. In 1829, he was ele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aril
An aril (pronounced ), also called an arillus, is a specialized outgrowth from a seed that partly or completely covers the seed. An arillode or false aril is sometimes distinguished: whereas an aril grows from the attachment point of the seed to the ovary (from the funiculus or '' hilum''), an arillode forms from a different point on the seed coat. The term "aril" is sometimes applied to any fleshy appendage of the seed in flowering plants, such as the mace of the nutmeg seed. Arils and arillodes are often edible enticements that encourage animals to transport the seed, thereby assisting in seed dispersal. Pseudarils are aril-like structures commonly found on the pyrenes of Burseraceae species that develop from the mesocarp of the ovary. The fleshy, edible pericarp splits neatly in two halves, then falling away or being eaten to reveal a brightly coloured pseudaril around the black seed. The aril may create a fruit-like structure, called (among other names) a ''false fruit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yerba Mate
Yerba mate or yerba-maté (''Ilex paraguariensis''; from Spanish ; pt, erva-mate, or ; gn, ka'a, ) is a plant species of the holly genus ''Ilex'' native to South America. It was named by the French botanist Augustin Saint-Hilaire. The leaves of the plant can be steeped in hot water to make a beverage known as ''mate''. Brewed cold, it is used to make ''tereré''. Both the plant and the beverage contain caffeine. The indigenous Guaraní and some Tupí communities (whose territory covered present-day Paraguay) first cultivated and consumed yerba mate prior to European colonization of the Americas. Its consumption was exclusive to the natives of only two regions of the territory that today is Paraguay, more specifically the departments of Amambay and Alto Paraná. After the Jesuits discovered its commercialization potential, yerba mate became widespread throughout the province and even elsewhere in the Spanish Crown. Mate is traditionally consumed in central and southern regi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. Seeds of the ''Coffea'' plant's fruits are separated to produce unroasted green coffee beans. The beans are Coffee roasting, roasted and then ground into fine particles that are typically steeped in hot water before being filtered out, producing a cup of coffee. It is usually served hot, although chilled or iced coffee is common. Coffee can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways (e.g., espresso, French press, caffè latte, or already-brewed canned coffee). Sugar, sugar substitutes, milk, and cream are often used to mask the bitter taste or enhance the flavor. Though coffee is now a global commodity, it has a History of coffee, long history tied closely to food traditions around the Red Sea. The earliest credible evidence of coffee d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bernabé Cobo
Padre Bernabé Cobo (born at Lopera in Spain, 1582; died at Lima, Peru, 9 October 1657) was a Spanish Jesuit missionary and writer. He played a part in the early history of quinine by his description of cinchona bark; he brought some to Europe on a visit in 1632. He was a thorough student of nature and man in Spanish America. His long residence (61 years), his position as a priest and, several times, as a missionary, gave him unusual opportunities for obtaining reliable information. The Spanish botanist Cavanilles gave the name of ''Cobaea'' to a genus of plants belonging to the Polemoniaceae of Mexico, '' Cobaea scandens'' being its most striking representative. Life He went to America in 1596, visiting the Antilles and Venezuela and landing at Lima in 1599. Entering the Society of Jesus, 14 October 1601, he was sent by his superiors in 1615 to the mission of Juli, where, and at Potosí, Cochabamba, Oruro, and La Paz, he laboured until 1618. He was rector of the college of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francisco Hernández De Toledo
Francisco Hernández de Toledo (1514 in La Puebla de Montalbán, Toledo – 28 January 1587 in Madrid) was a naturalist and court physician to the King of Spain. Hernández was among the first wave of Spanish Renaissance physicians practicing according to the revived principles formulated by Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna. Hernández studied medicine and botany at the University of Alcalá and may have traveled between cities in Spain, as it was common among physicians seeking to make a name for themselves. Moving from Seville with his wife and children, Hernández served briefly in the Hospital y Monasterio de Guadalupe and then at the Hospital Mendoza in Toledo, where he gained prominence for his studies of medicinal botany and publication of a Castilian translation of a work on natural history by Pliny the Elder. In 1567 Hernández became a personal physician to King Philip II. Scientific expedition to the New World In 1570, Hernández was ordered to embark on the first sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gonzalo Fernández De Oviedo Y Valdés
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (August 14781557), commonly known as Oviedo, was a Spanish soldier, historian, writer, botanist and colonist. Oviedo participated in the Spanish colonization of the West Indies, arriving in the first few years after Christopher Columbus, in 1492, became the first European to arrive at the islands. Oviedo's chronicle ''Historia general de las Indias'', published in 1535 to expand on his 1526 summary ''La Natural hystoria de las Indias'' (collectively reprinted, three centuries after his death, as ''Historia general y natural de las Indias''), forms one of the few primary sources about it. Portions of the original text were widely read in the 16th century in Spanish, English, Italian and French editions, and introduced Europeans to the hammock, the pineapple, and tobacco as well as creating influential representations of the colonized peoples of the region. Early life Oviedo was born in Madrid of an Asturian lineage and educated in the court o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbal Tea
Herbal teas, also known as herbal infusions and less commonly called tisanes (UK and US , US also ), are beverages made from the infusion or decoction of herbs, spices, or other plant material in hot water. Oftentimes herb tea, or the plain term ''tea'', is used as a reference to all sorts of herbal teas. Many herbs are used in herbal medicine. Some herbal blends contain actual tea (e.g., the Indian classic masala chai). The term "herbal" tea is often used in contrast to the so-called ''true'' teas (e.g., black, green, white, yellow, oolong), which are prepared from the cured leaves of the tea plant, '' Camellia sinensis''. Unlike true teas (which are also available decaffeinated), most tisanes do not naturally contain caffeine. There are a number of plants, however, that ''do'' contain caffeine or another stimulant, like theobromine, cocaine or ephedrine. Some have the opposite effect, acting as a sedative. Some common infusions have specific names such as , ''mate'' (ye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deity
A deity or god is a supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life". Religions can be categorized by how many deities they worship. Monotheistic religions accept only one deity (predominantly referred to as "God"), whereas polytheistic religions accept multiple deities. Henotheistic religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as aspects of the same divine principle. Nontheistic religions deny any supreme eternal creator deity, but may accept a pantheon of deities which live, die and may be reborn like any other being. Although most monotheistic religions traditionall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_W2_IMG_1899.jpg "Click for more on -> Sapindaceae")
_Quatro_libros_de_la_naturaleza_y_virtudes_de_las_plantas_y_animales.png "Click for more on -> Francisco Hernández De Toledo")
