Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Chief Object Of These Incursions Is The Collection Of Sarsaparilla
And The Aromatic Seeds Of The Puchery-Laurel (Laurus Pichurim).
The
sarsaparilla of these countries is celebrated at Grand Para,
Angostura, Cumana, Nueva Barcelona, and in other parts of Terra Firma,
by the name of zarza del Rio Negro.
It is much preferred to the zarza
of the Province of Caracas, or of the mountains of Merida; it is dried
with great care, and exposed purposely to smoke, in order that it may
become blacker. This liana grows in profusion on the humid declivities
of the mountains of Unturan and Achivaquery. Decandolle is right in
suspecting that different species of smilax are gathered under the
name of sarsaparilla. We found twelve new species, among which the
Smilax siphylitica of the Cassiquaire, and the Smilax officinalis of
the river Magdalena, are most esteemed on account of their diuretic
properties. The quantity of sarsaparilla employed in the Spanish
colonies as a domestic medicine is very considerable. We see by the
works of Clusius, that at the beginning of the Conquista, Europe
obtained this salutary medicament from the Mexican coast of Honduras
and the port of Guayaquil. The trade in zarza is now more active in
those ports which have interior communications with the Orinoco, the
Rio Negro, and the Amazon.
The trials made in several botanical gardens of Europe prove that the
Smilax glauca of Virginia, which it is pretended is the S.
sarsaparilla of Linnaeus, may be cultivated in the open air, wherever
the mean winter temperature rises above six or seven degrees of the
centigrade thermometer*: but those species that possess the most
active virtues belong exclusively to the torrid zone, and require a
much higher degree of heat.
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