[5] Lumholtz, _Tarahumari Dances_; _Huichol Indians_; _Explorations en Mexique_; _Symbolism of the Huichol_; _Unknown Mexico_; Kroeber, _The Arapaho_, 398-410. [6] Radin, _Sketch of the Peyote Cult_; _The Winnebago Tribe_, 388-426; _Crashing Thunder_. [7] Lowie, _Primitive Religion_, 200-204; Rouhier, _Monographie du Peyotl_; Wagner, _Entwicklung und Verbreitung_; Petrullo, _The Diabolic Root_. [8] Smith, Mrs. Maurice G., _A Negro Peyote Cult_. BOTANICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF PEYOTE BOTANY Numerous errors involved in the study of peyote, many of them still widely current, make it advisable to identify our subject-matter clearly at the very outset of our study. The plant peyote was first described by Sahagún in 1560 as a narcotic cactus used ritually by the Chichimeca, the root peiotl.[1] Jacinto de la Serna[2] in 1626 mentioned peyote, which he distinguished from other intoxicants. The first properly botanical description was made in 1638 by Hernandez,[3] the naturalist of Philip II of Spain, under the rubric De Peyotl Zacatensi, seu radice molli et lanuginosa. Ortega,[4] again, in 1754, mentioned peyote as used in a Cora dance. Since 1845 peyote has had numerous modern botanical classifications, being listed variously as _Echinocactus williamsii_ Lem., _Anhalonium williamsii_ Lem., _Mammillaria williamsii_ Coulter, _Echinocactus lewinii_ Hennings, _Mammillaria lewinii_ Karsten, _Lophophora lewinii_ Thompson, etc. The commonest designation in the older ethnological literature is _Anhalonium lewinii_ or _A. williamsii_. For a considerable period it was thought that these last were two species—a point argued both on botanical and ethnographic grounds—but the present classification of peyote is as a single species, the unique member of its genus, _Lophophora williamsii_.[5] The peyote plant is a curious and unique little cactus. It has no spines whatsoever, and ranges from the carrot-like to the turnip-like in shape and size, without, however, any branches or leaves. The rounded top surface, which alone appears above the soil (and which, cut off and dried, becomes the peyote “button”), is divided radially by straight, or slightly spiral, or sinuous furrows that in some specimens become so complex as to lose the appearance of ribs altogether. These ribs bear little tufts or pencils of matted grayish-white hair, not unlike artists’ fine camel’s-hair brushes. It is from these that the cactus takes both its modern botanical designation, _Lophophora_ (“I bear crests”) and its Aztec name _peyotl_ (from the resemblance to cocoon-silk). In the center of the top there is a little spot of closely matted fuzz, from which the ribs derive and grow; the flower, borne on a stalk, grows from here too, the pinkish-whitish blossom growing into a rapidly maturing club-shaped pinkish-reddish fruit.[6] ETHNOBOTANY