Brunfelsia grandiflora

The stomata are the oval-shaped apertures in plants through which carbon dioxide necessary for photosynthesis enters. They also release oxygen. In some of the confocal images of Brunfelsia grandiflora included here, the stomata are especially evident and could serve as an opportunity to consider how breath links humans and plants. In keeping with the ideas of Monica Gagliano in Thus Spoke the Plant, with every breath, plants in our presence might know humans as themselves, and, reciprocally, we humans become more plant-like than we realize and perhaps are able to recognize how we, too, can know plants as ourselves.

The flowers of Brunfelsia grandiflora are a dark purple the first day, a light lilac color the second and very white the third. The common name in English for this prized ornamental, “Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow”, is an invitation to meditate on the nature of Time itself and how temporality with its fluid, ongoing cycles is fully contained in each and every living organism.

As a prelude to mentioning Brunfelsia grandiflora and how it is perceived by different Amazonian ethnic groups and neighboring mestizo populations, Ludmila Skrabáková, who worked in the Peruvian Amazon among the Shipibo and Ocaina from 2002-2010, defines the key concept of Amerindian Perspectivism: “Together with other subjects, plants are entities that act as humans and thus as social agents—not just in traditional Amazonian healing and magic, but also in everyday life. The spirits or souls of plants, called madres (mothers) or dueños (owners), have anthropomorphic traits and are holders of certain characteristics, qualities, and powers. They are respected and feared; they intervene in peoples’ lives whether as a means of granting health or wealth or as teachers, guardians, villains and evildoers, and they occupy a solid place in Amazonian cosmology and mythology.”

In Las visiones y los mundos, Pedro Favaron says that the theory of Amazonian Perspectivism, developed by Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, affirms that “living is thinking and that goes for all living beings: from the smallest organisms to the Owners of medicine, from plants to humans; each species has its own perspective.” Favaron also says that, accordingly, “relations between plants and humans should occur in terms of equilibrium and dialogue.”

Skrabáková maintains that Amazonian shamans “are in constant negotiation with the plants’ souls—they enter into contracts with them, call on them for assistance, learn from them, and mediate contact between their human fellows and plants.” From these visionary healers during her fieldwork, the researcher from the Czech Republic learned that Brunfelsia grandiflora, or Chiric Sanango, is “one of the most powerful master plants and doctors.” The shamans, she continues, know this plant as “a wise old man with white hair. He is a very important teacher. With proper ‘dieting’, the juice from its roots and bark has the capability to open the doors to the plants’ world and make one see and understand the nature of plants as they really are (their human nature/qualities).” 

Timothy Plowman’s article “Brunfelsia in Ethnomedicine”, despite its 1977 publication date, is still the best overview of this genus and its medicinal and ceremonial uses throughout the Amazon region. Plowman’s fieldwork and research confirm the importance of Brunfelsia grandiflora as an analgesic and medicine against rheumatism and arthritis among the Kokama from the Río Ucayali in the Peruvian Amazon, the lowland Quechuas of Ecuador’s Río Napo, and the Siona of the Colombian Putumayo. As an admixture to the ayahuasca/yagé preparation among the Jívaro, Lama, Siona, Kofán and Inga, Plowman speculates that Brunfelsia and the tingling sensations that it produces when ingested creates “striking tactile hallucinations” and serves “to create a greater physical awareness during the ceremony” led by an Indigenous shaman highly skilled with regard to the dosage of this potent member of the Solanaceae family that is also used as a piscicide, an arrow poison, as well as an antidote to snakebites. 

In One River, Wade Davis recounts the story that Timothy Plowman told him about a near-death experience he had as a result of ingesting an extract prepared by a Colombian shaman. Davis writes: “Only in this case the sensation grew to a maddening intensity, spreading from the lips and fingertips toward the center of the body, progressing up the spine to the base of the skull in waves of cold that flooded over his consciousness. His breathing collapsed. Dizzy with vertigo, he lost all muscular control and fell to the mud floor of the shaman’s hut. In horror, he realized that he was frothing at the mouth. An hour passed. Paralyzed and tormented by an excruciating pain in his stomach, he remained only vaguely aware of where he was—on the earth, face-to-face with three snarling dogs fighting over the vomit that spread in a pool around his head.”

A team of researchers led by Carmen X. Luzuriaga-Quichimbo from Ecuador’s Universidad Tecnológica Equinoccial published a study in 2018 with a triple objective: 1) to synthesize the ethnobotanical knowledge about Brunfelsia grandiflora throughout Indigenous communities in Ecuador, 2) to rescue traditional knowledge about B. grandiflora that is extant in a specific isolated Canelo-Kichwa Amazonian community in the province of Pastaza, Ecuador and 3) to propose new bioproducts based on this plant related to the areas of childbirth, anesthesiology, and neurology. 

Raquel Mateos and her colleagues, in a 2022 overview of Brunfelsia grandiflora as a traditional medicine, identify for the first time “the phenolic composition of this medicinal plant to know the chemical structures of these phytochemicals that are behind the [plant’s] renowned biological properties.” 

In a personal communication (2024), Jonathon Miller Weisberger described his experiences with Ujajái (the name in the Paicoca language for Brunfelsia grandiflora) while he was living for an extended period of time with the Siekopai in Ecuador. He said the root of the plant is rasped and left as a cold water extract to “cook” in direct sunlight on the same day as yagé is being prepared. As time passes, the root starch of the Brunfelsia, which is poisonous, settles in the container of the extract. The maestro-healer drinks some pure yagé then adds only the liquid (not the accumulated solid) Ujajái to the yagé preparation, which the maestro stirs with a twig and prays over for a good while. The maestro, having drunk yagé already, has entered the sacred ceremonial space, praying and blowing on the ujajái-yagé mix. From his own hand, he gives the one or two of his apprentices who are present at the ritual a gourd filled with the mixture. The students do not touch the gourd, but, rather, drink from the maestro’s hand. Jonathon said that he drank this mixture on several different occasions and experienced similar effects, which he characterized as “agonizing and maddeningly strong” and not something he looks forward to trying again: fire was burning up his body, shooting from his every orifice. He saw two boas of fire like a caduceus burning upward from his belly. Other preparations that Jonathon mentioned involved ujajái leaves, and were used by the Siekopai for treating arthritic pain and also toothaches. 

Brunfelsia grandiflora, known by a plethora of Indigenous common names, is a plant of ancient traditions as well as a vibrant (albeit relatively unknown) life in the contemporary world of Amazonia. Clearly, it merits deeper study, and, most certainly, it is worthy of our utmost respect.