Warburg is one of many species of Virola used in the Amazon region as a hallucinogenic snuff. The plant differs in its pattern of usage by the indigenous people of this region. The Brazilian botanist Ducke was the first to make a definitive association between the hallucinogenic snuff used by the natives of the Amazon and the genus Virola in 1938.
Pistillate inflorescences are shorter.
It is a tree of well-drained forests. Virola use by natives of South America Virola is used in the manufacture of hallucinogenic substances by various tribes throughout the range of the genus. Social implications for use, and the preferred form of the hallucinogen, differ according to region. The indian tribes of this region include the Barasana, Makuna, Puinave, Kabuyari, and Kuripko among others. Virola theiodora , V. calophylla , V. calophylloidea , and V. elongata are used in the making of a snuff as well as Theobroma .