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Cryptobotany

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Depiction of a man-eating tree from Central America.

Cryptobotany is the study of plants which are not currently known to science, but which may have living examples.

In many old reports of each culture, there are reports of plants, used for healing purposes, whose species is unknown. In China 2500 plants are described for medical uses, but cannot be identified as existing plants . There are also numerous rumours about man-eating trees.

Writers and researchers in the United States have been amongst those to seek reported or legendary plants; the 1950s and 60s saw a number of books and articles on the pyschedelic or mystical plants of South America. William Burroughs sought the telepathy inducing plant sometimes called 'Yage', finding other novel plant specimens such as the telepathine bearing Banisteriopsis caapi. The ethnobotanists, Terence and Dennis McKenna, also entered the jungles of south america; taking the guidance of the local peoples to isolate species in use as hallucinogens. Ethnomycology and the associated search for reported species were abundant, entering the popular culture of the time. The earlier books of Carlos Castenada detailed his search for various psychoactive mushrooms and plants, an overlap with a western religious tradition was proposed in Allegro's, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross.

Notes

  1. 1993 - True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author’s Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil’s Paradise (HarperSanFrancisco 1st Ed) ISBN 0-06-250545-9
  2. Allegro, John (1970). The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: The Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity Within Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. pp. pp. 320. ISBN 0340128755. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)


Bibliography

  • Terence McKenna, 1992 - Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge - A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution (Bantam) ISBN 0-553-37130-4

See also

Category: