Vanda

When bees sip nectar from these beautiful orchids,

which are found in Sri Lanka, India, and Burma

(Myanmar), they soon fall to the ground in a

narcoticized stupor (cf. honey). In India, a

psychoactive use of this plant is said to have been

derived from observations of this occurrence:

'~yurvedic shamans used the flower in a decoction

to achieve the hypnotic narcosis of their

office, permitting them a transcendent state of

being" (Emboden 1979, 17*).

No active principles are known (Emboden

1979, "194*).