Fresh Clips: Peruvian Mystery Herb

Enlarge Image Image Gallery This research could lead to new studies that could eventually lead to the development of new medicines.

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In 2006, the National Geographic News service reported on the discovery of a well-preserved 1,500-year-old tattooed mummy of a young woman deep inside a mud-brick Moche pyramid. The discovery was detailed in the June 2006 issue of National Geographic magazine. The archaeological evidence suggests that sacrifice played an important role in Moche religious ritual.

The richly illustrated iconography depicting religious life also clearly showed that one particular plant played an important symbolic, or perhaps even biological, role in rituals, especially sacrifice. The fruit or seed is clearly depicted, most frequently on the belts of warriors and runners, intoxicated priests, or floating or flying through the air in sacrificial scenes. Moche scholars call the plant depicted in the art Ulluchu. The late Donna McClelland, a pre-Columbian art scholar, established the importance of the plant in a seminal 1977 paper.

However, Ulluchu has remained an unidentified plant until now. Combining the morphological characteristics of the fruit/seed, along with ethnobotanical data and assumptions on the pharmacology, Rainer Bussmann and Douglas Sharon identified the plant as a species of Guarea, a tree represented by 25 to 30 species in Peru. Why is this discovery significant beyond its obvious academic value? The genus Guarea is poorly studied chemically and pharmacologically, though some species are used as folk medicines. Given the importance of the plant in Moche culture, Guarea species undoubtedly hold yet-undiscovered value. The research could lead to new studies that reveal the secrets of Guarea, which could eventually lead to the development of new medicines.

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