Organisation(s)
US (main), A, AMES, B, BM, CAS, E, F, G, GH, K, LCU, MEDEL, MICH, MO, NY, P, S, U, VALLE
Biography
Peruvian mining engineer and amateur botanist who made extensive collections in Amazonian Peru and Colombia in the 1920s-1930s, which contributed substantially to knowledge of the area's flora. Many of the specimens he sent to U.S. herbaria (including the Smithsonian Institution, Field Museum and New York Botanical Garden) were species new to science and of ethnobotanical interest. As well as collecting the vine Chondrodendron tomentosum Ruiz and Pavon, that yields curare, he also sent specimens of the plant local Indians used to make the hallucinogenic drink ayahuasca, or yagé. In 1931, C.V. Morton (1905-1972) published Klug's field notes from his exploration of the Colombian Putumayo, where he discovered the drug's source, Banisteriopsis inebrians. Several species have been named after him. Klug's field notes are held at the Smithsonian and at New York Botanical Garden.
Sources:
Anon., 1941, "The Amateur in Botany", Journal of the New York Botanical Garden, 42(493): 1
H. King, 1946, "Botanical Origin of Tube-Curare", Nature, 158: 515
R.E. Schultes, "An Ethnobotanical Perspective on Ayahuasca":
http://www.biopark.org/peru/schultes-ayahuasca.html.
References
Brummitt, R.K. & Powell, C.E., Authors Pl. Names (1992): 330; Chaudhri, M.N., Vegter, H.I. & de Bary, H.A., Index Herb. Coll. I-L (1972): 369;
