Whites have used numerous confusing and erroneous non-botanical terms for _Lophophora williamsii_. Of these usages the commonest, “mescal,” “mescal beans” or “mescal buttons” are the most confusing. Mescal (from the Nahuatl mexcalli, “metl [maguey] liquor”) in northern Mexico, properly refers to the _Agave americana_ or _Agave_ spp. baked in earth ovens and widely eaten in the Southwest, and from which the Mescalero Apache take their name. By extension the term is applied to the intoxicant distilled from the native beer, pulque, also made from _Agave_ spp. A more precise designation of this native brandy (as opposed to the native beer) is tesvino and its variants, from the Nahuatl tehuinti or teyuinti, “intoxicating.”[24] “Mescal bean” as used to designate _Lophophora williamsii_ is quite indefensible, being wrong on two counts: the “mescal” bean proper is _Sophora secundiflora_ (= _Broussonetia secundiflora_) or, incorrectly, _Erythrina flabelliformis_. The former is a red bean which was used in a pre-peyote narcotic cult of the southern Plains, to be discussed later. The adjectival use of “mescal” in the designations “mescal beans” or “mescal buttons” no doubt comes from the known intoxicating properties of the distilled liquor mescal, as extended in meaning to other unfamiliar new intoxicants, _Sophora secundiflora_ (bean), and _Lophophora williamsii_ (cactus); the term “dry whisky” bears this out. Lumholtz,[25] indeed, wrote that the Texas Rangers, during the Civil War, when taken prisoner and deprived of all other stimulating drinks, soaked peyote (which they called “white mule”) in water and became intoxicated on the liquid. Further confusion of peyote with mescal has arisen from the north Mexican habit of mixing the two in a drink. Dealers call peyote the “turnip cactus” or “dumpling cactus” from its shape, to which also refers the local Mexican term biznagas, “carrot.” A local name in Starr County, Texas, where the plant grows abundantly, is challote, but the usual dealers’ name is “peyote buttons,” from their flat shape when dried. ETYMOLOGY OF PEYOTE A precise understanding of the meaning of this term is essential, for it gives a linguistic clue of primary importance in botanical identification. Molina[26] in 1571 recorded the Nahuatl term peyutl, whose elastic and imprecise sense designates something white, shining, silky or woolly, and which applies to the moth-cocoon, a spider-web, a fine tissue, or, indeed, from its appearance (familiar enough to the Aztecs) even to the pericardium or covering of the heart. Rémi Siméon, in his Nahuatl dictionary of 1885, lists “Peyotl or Peyutl—A plant whose root served to make a drink that took the place of wine (Sahagún); silkworm cocoon; pericardium, envelope of the heart.”[27]