12 MR. B. SPBUCE ON THE MODE OF BRANCHING 



It may be deduced from the foregoing examples, that where the 

 primary ramification is isochotomous, what botanists call a deter- 

 minate or deliquescent stem will result ; and where it is verticillate, 

 opposite or alternate, the stem will be indeterminate or excurrent. 

 A proliferous stem may be considered an aggregate of annual 

 determinate stems ; and the "whorl " of branches in which each 

 stem terminates is more properly a fascicle, corresponding to those 

 of Bauwolfia or any other cymosely -branched plant. 



There is a remarkable class of plants, not unfrequent in Amazon 

 forests, with a simple stem continually lengthening at the apex, 

 but normally never branched. An examination of their structure 

 Bhows that all the secondary axes are annual ; i.e. z. flowering pe- 

 duncle is produced in every leaf-axil. Trees of this class may truly 

 be called palmiform ; and some notable examples of it exist in Cin- 

 chonece, such as, for instance, Bemijia lacnnosa, PL Am. (Rio Negro 

 and Uaupes), whose slender unb ranched trunk, 40 feet high, is 

 crowned by large leaves near 2 feet long, which give it at a distance 

 the aspect of a small palm. The Caricce, or Papaws, have a similar 

 habit ; and most of the species branch only by exception, as where, 

 from some accidentally sterile axil (especially of the first leaves of 

 the young plant), a branch is put forth after the lapse of perhaps 

 several years, and then most likely adventitiously, as, for instance, 

 in consequence of the breaking off of the leading shoot. 



Melia Azedarach, the " Flor de Paraiso " of the Maynensians, 



going down to Marabitanas, the frontier town of Brazil, to purchase pigs and 

 riee. In returning from one of these visits (a distance of three days up stream in 

 a small canoe), we were one day towards evening skirting the gapo, in which only 

 the tree-tops were out of water, when, on the thick flat top of a Bucida, we saw an 

 enormous water-snake (Sucuriju) coiled up and enjoying a quiet sleep. I instantly 

 seized my gun to shoot it. " Stay," said the two Indians who rowed my canoe, 

 " let us run the prow under the branches, so that when you shoot the snake, it 

 may fall into the canoe." " Wait first to see whether I disable it," replied I ; 

 for the risk of such a process was obvious, and I knew not then, as I came to 

 know afterwards, what expert snake-hunters these men were, nor that when a 

 Barre Indian meets a large snake or a tiger, he thinks not of fleeing from it, but 

 of eating it. So at ten paces' distance I put a charge of swan-shot into the 

 monster : the blood spirted from the wound, and for some moments he did not 

 stir ; so I thought him dead, when he began slowly to uncoil and to descend 

 towards the water. So thick-set were the branches, that I could not once get 

 sight of his head, to give him the charge of the other barrel in that part, ere he 

 reached the water and escaped, to the great disappointment of my companions, 

 who had calculated on a savoury supper. I have seen one of these animals move 

 off with four charges of shot in its body, though they are easily killed by a shot 

 in the head. 



