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Article: HUNTING FOR POISONS.(plants from the Amazon River Region that have medicinal purposes)
- Article from:
- Appleseeds
- Article date:
- April 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Carus Publishing Co. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Do you notice plants and collect leaves and flowers, pressing them between the pages of a book?
That's exactly what plant explorer Richard Evans Schultes first did when he went to Colombia, South America, in 1941. Seeing a tiny orchid, he picked it and pressed it between the pages of his passport. It was the first--of 25,000--replant collections he made!
Schultes went to South America to hunt for arrow and dart poisons in the northwest Amazon region. His goal was to find and identify plants that were sources of poisons known as curare (koo-RAH-ray). He did this by finding the best poison makers in the Amazon--the Kofan Indians.
The study of how ...