By: GIORGIO SAMORINI
Ethnographic evidence of the current use of plants of the genus Solandra as visionary agents among some Mexican ethnic groups leads to a reconsideration of these plants as possibly known and used for a long time by native populations and to a search for their traces in the precolonial past. One of the problems of this reassessment concerns the identification of the ancient names given to the Solandra; an aspect that is still unclear and which is the subject of this study. The long history of the identification of tecomaxóchitl as Solandra is retraced, a history that is incompletely and often incorrectly known. A new approach is proposed to the problem of the identification of cacahuaxóchitl, the “cacao flower”, understood not as a specific plant to be identified botanically, but rather as an adjectival category that indicated a series of plants that were added to cocoa beverages. The inconsistency of the identification of the poyomatli with Quararibea funebris reported in the ethnobotanical and Mexican literature is also highlighted, in favour of its possible identification with a Solandra.
