ADDITION TO CACTI COLLECTION
PLANT USED AS DRUG BY MEXICANS
Recent additions to the collection of cacti at present -being displayed in the Townend House in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens are .three
plants of the famous mescal or peyotle species known to the ancient Mexicans. These plants have powerful exhilarating and; later narcotic properties which produce effects similar to those of hashish.
The word mescal means a mushroom. and the ancient Mexicans used to cut off the tops of those plants and eat them at their festivals, a practice which is now prohibited by law. The dried tops of the plant were often made into bunches or wreaths and sold as mescal; but as botanic travellers were in search of a fungus and not of a cactus, some time elapsed before it
was ascertained that the so-called mescal “buttons” were the dried tops of this cactus.
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Bibliographic details
Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22922, 19 January 1940, Page 6
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146ADDITION TO CACTI COLLECTION Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22922, 19 January 1940, Page 6
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