__NOTOC__
''Psychotria poeppigiana'' is a
plant
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclu ...
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
in the
family
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...
Rubiaceae
The Rubiaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with interpetiolar stipules a ...
; a common name is sore-mouth bush,
[USDA (2006)] though it is not very often used. This species is currently accepted as ''Palicourea tomentosa'' based on a journal article published in 2011 (see
#Taxonomy and names).
It ranges widely in the
tropical
The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the Equator. They are defined in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the Northern Hemisphere at N and the Tropic of Capricorn in
the Southern Hemisphere at S. The tropics are also referred to ...
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
, from
Chiapas,
Oaxaca
Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...
,
Tabasco
Tabasco (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Tabasco ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Tabasco), is one of the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 17 municipalities and its capital city is Villahermosa.
It is located in ...
and
Veracruz
Veracruz (), formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave), is one of the 31 states which, along with Me ...
in
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
to the very north of
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
. It does not occur on the
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...
side of the
American cordillera however, and is thus absent from
El Salvador and
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
. It is probably also absent from
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
and
Paraguay
Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to th ...
.
''P. poeppigiana'' is a large
shrub. The
inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...
s are carried upright or semi-erect and are surrounded by large
bracts, colored a conspicuous red, that attract
pollinators. The flowers themselves are inconspicuous, with the small yellow
petals and
sepal
A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coine ...
s forming a narrow
corollar tube. Pollinators are mainly
hummingbirds, namely small
hermit
A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions.
Description
In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Ch ...
(Phaethornithinae) species like the
black-throated hermit
The black-throated hermit (''Phaethornis atrimentalis'') is a species of hummingbird in the family Trochilidae. It is found in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
Taxonomy and systematics
The black-throated hermit was for a time considered a subspec ...
(''Phaethornis atrimentalis''),
straight-billed hermit
The straight-billed hermit (''Phaethornis bourcieri'') is a species of bird in the family Trochilidae, the hummingbirds. It is found in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.Remsen, J. V., Jr., J. I. Ar ...
(''P. bourcieri'') and
reddish hermit
The reddish hermit (''Phaethornis ruber'') is a species of bird in the family Trochilidae, the hummingbirds. It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, and the Guianas.
Taxonomy and systematics
In 1743 the English nat ...
(''P. ruber''). They do not insert their bills deeply into the small flowers, and thus the pollinators of the sore-mouth bush include curved- and straight-billed species alike.
Taxonomy and names
The scientific name honours the
botanist Eduard Friedrich Poeppig
Eduard Friedrich Poeppig (16 July 1798 – 4 September 1868) was a German botanist, zoologist and explorer.
Biography
Poeppig was born in Plauen, Saxony. He studied medicine and natural history at the University of Leipzig, graduating with a me ...
. This widespread plant has been described under a variety of names, today all considered
synonyms:
* ''Callicocca tomentosa''
(Aubl.) J.F.Gmel.
* ''Cephaelis hirsuta''
M.Martens & Galeotti
* ''Cephaelis tomentosa''
( Aubl.) Vahl Vahl is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Christian-Friedrich Vahl (born 1955), German cardiac surgeon
* Emanuel Vahl (born 1938), Ukrainian-Israeli composer
*Herbert-Ernst Vahl, German SS general
*Jens Vahl (1796–1854), Danis ...
* ''Cephaelis vultusmimi''
Dwyer
* ''Evea tomentosa''
(Aubl.) Standl.
* ''Psychotria hirsuta''
(M.Martens & Galeotti) Müll. Arg. ex Mart.
* ''Tapogomea tomentosa''
Aubl.
* ''Uragoga poeppigiana''
( Müll. Arg.) Kuntze Kuntze is a surname of German origin. People with that name include:
* Carl Kuntze (1922-2006), Dutch rower who competed at the 1952 Summer Olympics
* Edward J. Kuntze (1826-1870), Prussian-born American sculptor
* Otto Kuntze (1843-1907), German ...
* ''Uragoga tomentosa''
(Aubl.) K.Schum.
A
subspecies has been named:
[DeFilipps ''et al.'' (2004): p.247]
* ''Psychotria poeppigiana'' ssp. ''barcellana''
(Muell. Arg.) Steyerm.
In 2011, Hungarian botanist
Attila Borhidi published reclassification of Mexican ''Psychotria'' species, transferring ''Psychotria poeppigiana'' into ''Palicourea tomentosa'' based on ''Tapogomea tomentosa''. This reclassification has been accepted by
Kew
Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is a ...
.
[Govaerts ''et al.'' (2019).]
Local names include:
*
Carib languages
The Cariban languages are a family of languages indigenous to northeastern South America. They are widespread across northernmost South America, from the mouth of the Amazon River to the Colombian Andes, and they are also spoken in small pockets ...
:
**
Guiana Carib: ''yo-nu-ne-mah'' (
Akuriyó), ''ku-ri-lu eh-nah-pe-da'' (
Tiriyó)
**
North Amazonian Carib: ''kaia-eno-mio'' (
Akawaio)
**
Central Carib: ''pe-yah-o-tih-puh'' (
Wayana
The Wayana (alternate names: Ajana, Uaiana, Alucuyana, Guaque, Ojana, Oyana, Orcocoyana, Pirixi, Urukuena, Waiano etc.) are a Carib-speaking people located in the southeastern part of the Guiana highlands, a region divided between Brazil, Suri ...
)
*
Creole language
A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...
s: ''radie zore'' (
French Guiana Creole), soldier's cap (
Guyanese Creole
Guyanese English Creole (''Creolese'' by its speakers or simply Guyanese) is an English-based creole language spoken by the Guyanese people. Linguistically, it is similar to other English dialects of the Caribbean region, based on 19th-century ...
)
*
Tupí–Guaraní languages: ''tapi'i-kanami'' (
Ka'apor
The Ka'apor are an indigenous people of Brazil. They live on a protected reserve in the state of Maranhão. They were the subject of a book by anthropologist Dr. William Balée in an exhaustive study of their ethnobotany lifeways and the histo ...
), meaning "
tapir
Tapirs ( ) are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America, with one species inh ...
-''kanami''". ''Kanami'' is the Ka'apor term for
poison used in fishing prepared from ''
Clibadium''. The name references both plant's (real or presumed) property of making animals more accessible to hunters (see
below).
[Balée (1994): p.105]
Use by humans
The
Ka'apor
The Ka'apor are an indigenous people of Brazil. They live on a protected reserve in the state of Maranhão. They were the subject of a book by anthropologist Dr. William Balée in an exhaustive study of their ethnobotany lifeways and the histo ...
people of
Maranhão
Maranhão () is a state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of . Clockwise from north, it borders on the Atlantic Ocean for 2,243 km and the states of Piauí, Tocantins and ...
(
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
) use its flowers as a "hunting fetish", a magical
talisman
A talisman is any object ascribed with religious or magical powers intended to protect, heal, or harm individuals for whom they are made. Talismans are often portable objects carried on someone in a variety of ways, but can also be installed perm ...
to facilitate hunting. As the
Tulane University
Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into a comprehensive pub ...
anthropologist and
historical ecologist William Balée William Balée (born 1954) is a professor of anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.
He was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and educated at the University of Florida, Gainesville, where he received a B.A. in Anthropology bef ...
describes it,
"... flowers of ''Psychotria poeppigiana'' ..are wrapped in a piece of cloth and affixed to a dog's collar so that it may more easily find the enormous, highly desirable, and decidedly uncommon tapir
Tapirs ( ) are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America, with one species inh ...
"
''Psychotria poeppigiana'' has several uses in
folk medicine
Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the ...
; it is widely used as a
painkiller
An analgesic drug, also called simply an analgesic (American English), analgaesic (British English), pain reliever, or painkiller, is any member of the group of drugs used to achieve relief from pain (that is, analgesia or pain management). It i ...
besides having some more specialized applications. The
Tiriyó of
Suriname crush and boil the plant and use the resulting decoction to treat
headaches,
sprains,
rheumatism, muscular pains and
bruise
A bruise, also known as a contusion, is a type of hematoma of tissue, the most common cause being capillaries damaged by trauma, causing localized bleeding that extravasates into the surrounding interstitial tissues. Most bruises occur close ...
s. The
Wayana
The Wayana (alternate names: Ajana, Uaiana, Alucuyana, Guaque, Ojana, Oyana, Orcocoyana, Pirixi, Urukuena, Waiano etc.) are a Carib-speaking people located in the southeastern part of the Guiana highlands, a region divided between Brazil, Suri ...
, also of Surinam, grind the bark and apply it raw to a particular
rash
A rash is a change of the human skin which affects its color, appearance, or texture.
A rash may be localized in one part of the body, or affect all the skin. Rashes may cause the skin to change color, itch, become warm, bumpy, chapped, dry, c ...
known to them as ''poispoisi''. The
bracts are crushed to release the sap, which is then applied into the
ear canal to relieve earaches. The decoction from the
inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...
, boiled whole, is credited with
antitussive
Cold medicines are a group of medications taken individually or in combination as a treatment for the symptoms of the common cold and similar conditions of the upper respiratory tract. The term encompasses a broad array of drugs, including ...
qualities and used as a
whooping cough
Whooping cough, also known as pertussis or the 100-day cough, is a highly contagious bacterial disease. Initial symptoms are usually similar to those of the common cold with a runny nose, fever, and mild cough, but these are followed by two or t ...
remedy and more generally to treat
respiratory tract infections, as are decoctions of the leaves of ssp. ''barcellana''.
It also contains
dimethyltryptamine
''N'',''N''-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT or ''N'',''N''-DMT, SPL026) is a substituted tryptamine that occurs in many plants and animals, including human beings, and which is both a derivative and a structural analog of tryptamine. It is used as a ...
, though as suggested by the use native peoples make of it probably not in quantities to render it strongly
psychedelic.
See also
*
Psychedelic plants
Psychoactive plants are plants, or preparations thereof, that upon ingestion induce psychotropic effects. As stated in a reference work:
Psychoactivity may include sedative, stimulant, euphoric, deliriant, and hallucinogenic effects.
Several ...
Footnotes
References
* (1994): ''Footprints of the Forest: Ka'apor Ethnobotany – the Historical Ecology of Plant Utilization by an Amazonian People.'' Columbia University Press, New York.
* (2004): ''Medicinal Plants of the Guianas (Guyana, Surinam, French Guiana)''. Department of Botany, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution
PDF fulltext* (2005): Análisis ecomorfológico de una comunidad de colibríes ermitaños (Trochilidae, Phaetorninae) y sus flores en la Amazonia colombiana.
comorphological analysis of a community of hermit hummingbirds (Trochilidae, Phaethorninae) and their flowers in Colombian Amazonia ''Ornitología Colombiana'' 3: 7-27
panish with English abstractbr>
PDF fulltext* (2006):
Germplasm Resources Information Network
Germplasm Resources Information Network or GRIN is an online USDA National Genetic Resources Program software project to comprehensively manage the computer database for the holdings of all plant germplasm collected by the National Plant Germpl ...
&ndash
''Psychotria poeppigiana'' Müll. Arg. Version of 2006-AUG-21. Retrieved 2008-DEC-21.
*
*
Govaerts, R., Ruhsam, M., Andersson, L., Robbrecht, E., Bridson, D., Davis, A., Schanzer, I., Sonké, B. (2019). World Checklist of Rubiaceae. Facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Published on the Internet; https://wcsp.science.kew.org/namedetail.do?name_id=466178 Retrieved 25 June 2019
External links
Images:
(www.tropicos.org) – ''Psychotria poeppigiana''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Psychotria poeppigiana
tomentosa
Flora of Central America
Flora of South America
Flora of the Amazon
Flora of the Yucatán Peninsula
Flora of Chiapas
Flora of Oaxaca
Flora of Tabasco
Flora of Veracruz
Flora of Belize
Flora of Venezuela
Flora of Argentina
Flora of Brazil
Medicinal plants