Genus of flowering plants
Ovidia Meissn. is a genus of plants in the family Thymelaeaceae. (Ovidia Raf. is a synonym for Commelina.)
As of June 2016[update], The Plant List accepts three species:[1]
- Ovidia andina (Poepp. & Endl.) Meisn.
- Ovidia pillopillo (Gay) Meisn.
- Ovidia sericea C. Antezana & Z.S. Rogers
Alleged use as entheogen
O. pillopillo has been claimed to be 'one of the four major hallucinogens’ used by the Mapuche of Chile. The other three plant species involved are drawn from a list including Latua pubiflora, Desfontainia spinosa, Drimys winteri, Lobelia tupa and Datura stramonium.[2] The specific name pillopillo is one of the common names for the plant in the Mapudungun language - another of which is Lloime - while a Spanish common name Palo hediondo ("Stinking tree") apparently refers to the unpleasant smell of the foliage. Chilefora records the plant as being "poisonous" (without further detail) - a far from uncommon property in the Thymelaeaceae, a predominantly Southern Hemisphere plant family containing many species used to manufacture paper and cordage and likewise many toxic species with violently purgative properties, though few yet known to be psychoactive.[3]
Neither Claude Gay's original description of the plant (as Daphne pillopillo), nor Murillo's oft-quoted account in his classic work on the medicinal plants of Chile make any mention of any effects of Ovidia pillopillo on the CNS, both of which suggest that Rätsch may be in error claiming the plant to be hallucinogenic (although this by no means rules out a rôle for the plant of some other kind in Mapuche ritual).
