6 MR. li SPBUCE 0> THE MODE OJT BBASC1HS8 



depressed below the horizontal line, the long ramuli densely clad 

 towards the apex with dark-green leaves along with axillary 

 flowers. X. salicifolia, Dun. (Orinoco), with very similar habit, 

 has much paler, softer leaves. X. parvijlora, PI. Am. 3678 (San 

 Carlos), the most beautiful of the genus, grows 60 feet high, and 

 has a dense pyramidal head of four times pinnate branches. X. 

 qrandiflora, St. Hil., is abundant at the cataracts of the Orinoco, 

 and is probably the TInona seen there by Humboldt, who remarked 

 its straight branches and pyramidal outline, which features, how- 

 ever, are less marked than in the species above-cited. 



Two other families, Bombacece and Tiliacece, bearing nearly the 

 same relation to each other as Myristicece and Anonacece, are often 

 distinguished by precisely the same difference in the ramification ; 

 the branches being whorled in the former, and solitary in the 

 latter. The large Eriodendra of the Amazon, called " Samauma " 

 by the natives, are remarkable for their regularly dome-shaped 

 crown, approaching to, but generally less than, a hemisphere. 

 "When on the lower Amazon, where these trees most abound, I 

 had not begun to note critically the modes of branching ; and I 

 have never seen a large Eriodendron prostrate. Their normal 

 ramification, so far as I could ascertain it from below, seems to be 

 this : primary branches horizontal, 5-nate (but often with two or 

 three additional branches of more recent date to lower whorls), 

 bipinnate ; secondary branches horizontal; ramuli ascending 

 When the lofty Eriodendron of the gapd (E. Samauma, Mart. ?) 

 is without leaves, its round crown, towering above the rest of the 

 forest, is a beautiful object if projected on some thunder-cloud at 

 the back, the tracery of its branches assuming a delicate pink 

 colour. 



A species of OcJiroma (one of the " Palos de balsa," or raft-wood 

 trees*), frequent near the Huallaga, has the primary branches 5- 

 nate, exactly as in Myristica ; but the secondary branches are also 

 4-5-nate, and (as might be inferred) the leaves are not distichous ; 

 so that, though the contour is nearly the same as in Myristica, the 

 crown has not the regularly imbricated appearance which is pro- 

 duced in that genus by all the branches and leaves being extended 

 in parallel horizontal planes. 



In many Tiliacece, especially in Mollia and the allied genera, 



* The raft-wood trees of the Kio Negro and Casiquiare are Apoeynece, species 

 of Malouetia. On the Trombetas a species of Plumiera (P. Mulongo, Bth.) 

 serves the same purpose. Bamboos and the thick petioles of the large Mauritius 

 are also common materials for rafts throughout Amazonland. 



