APPENDIX 1: PEYOTE IN MEXICO
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The connotative etymological implications of the term “peyotl” become valuable when an understanding of its wider denotative applications is sought. In Hernandez’ original description, Lophophora williamsii is called “Peyotl Zacatensi, seu radice molli et lanuginosa”[1]—that is to say, the whitish flocculence which gains the plant both its Aztec and modern botanical names, is again pointed out in Hernandez’ Latin synonym, “soft and lanuginous root.”
But Hernandez distinguished two peyotes, “Peyotl Zacatensi” and “Peyotl Xochimilcensi,”[2] the latter not even one of the Cactaceae, and one wonders at the classification until the plant is botanically described:
This peyote, a rather excellent medicine, has a heavy round root covered with woolly rootlets, in addition to other roots which resemble acorns, because of their form and size, growing out in every direction.... It has few stems ... with yellow flowers at their extremities.
From even this brief characterization it is clear that the term “peyotl” was extended to this non-cactus (later identified as Cacalia diversifolia or C. cordifolia)[3] because of its balanoid lanuginous roots. The latter species is sold in the drug markets around Guadalajara, Jalisco, as “peyote”; specimens from Alvarez, San Luis Potosí, locally known as “cachan,” are valued as an aphrodisiac and remedy for sterility, the rhizic-orchic pubescence of the plant being evidently viewed in terms of sympathetic magic.
Dr. Alfonso[4] applies the term peyote or piote further to Cacalia sinuata, La Llave, and Etchevarria coespitosa Dec., the former Compositae, the latter one of the Crassulaceae. One of the Compositae, Senecio spp., ranging from Cerro del Pino to the Valley of Mexico is thus described:
The tap-root is tuberous-ovoid, size of a small hen’s egg, a little curved above, carrying almost all [its bulk] in the heavy extremity.... All the surface is covered with a nap formed of long matted hairs of the color of cannel, and a number of long roots.
The “Peyote of Tepic”[5] (Senecio hartwegii) is smaller and more globular than the above, and contains no alkaloid, the gluey, sticky sap having no effect on the dove or the rat. The “Peyote of Querétaro” (Echinocactus turbinatus Henning), said to be distinguished from Anhalonium only by the spiral disposition of the hair-pencils, is a common form of Lophophora williamsii.
In the case of all these non-cacti to which the term peyote has been applied, the plants have exhibited descriptively either a lanuginous or pubescent surface-nap, or balanoid, orchitic, or nut-like root-nodules, and in some cases both; in one case there was a cocoon-shaped pod in addition. But Schultes[6] lists other “peyotes” which may not fit this explanation: Compositae: Senecio calophyllus Hemsl., S. Hartwegii Benth., S. ovatiformis Sch. Bip., S. Petasitus DC and Cacalia spp. (e.g., C. cordifolia HBK); Leguminosae: Rhynchosia longeracemosa Mart. & Gal.; and even one of the Solanaceae, Datura meteloides DC.
All the above are non-cacti, but many Cactaceae have also been called “peyote.” These include: Anhalonium Englemannii Lem., A. prismaticum Lem., A. furfuraceum Wats., A. pulvilligerum Lem., A. areolosum Lem., Lophophora williamsii Lem., Ariocarpus fissuratus (Englm.) K. Schum., Astrophytum myriostigma Lem., A. asterias (Zucc.) Lem., Pelecyphora aselliformis Ehrenb., and Strombocactus disciformis DC. The diminutive “peyotillo” has been applied to Dolichothele longimamma Britton and Rose, and Solisia pectinata Britton and Rose.[7]