624 ON TWO NEW SPECIES OF LAURINES. 
O Two New Species of the Family LAvRiNEX from the 
Forests of Guiana; by the CmgvALIER Rosertr H. 
ScuoMBunGk, Ph. D. 
Grandeur im the development of its forms is the chief 
feature of tropical vegetation. The grass assumes an arbo- 
rescent aspect, the Fern vies in appearance with the stately 
Palm. Gigantic trees raise their lofty crowns to a height 
unknown in the European forest and display the greatest 
contrast in the structure and appearance of their foliage, 
offering inexhaustible treasures, not only for architecture, but 
likewise for the manufacture of furniture and for other 
domestic uses. 
The primitive forests of Guiana eminently afford an 
instance of the fecundity with which nature has spread her 
gifts to render their aspect more imposing and majestic. 
I have somewhere else described the Mora,* which most 
appropriately has been called the King of the Forest, as it 
towers above every other tree and reaches frequently a 
height of 90 to 100 feet before it diverges into branches. 
Among those vegetable productions, which in height and 
circumference vie with the Mora, are trees of the Mimosa, 
the Laurel, the Cesalpinia, the Sapota, the Bombas and 
various other tribes, of which Botanists and travellers, 1n 
consequence of their gigantic size and the uncertainty when 
they are in flower, have not been able to procure the neces- 
sary data to assign them a station in their system. : 
The tree which forms the first object of my description 
has been known since the last century. Bancroft, in his 
Natural History of Guiana published in 1769, describes the 
Greenheart tree or Sipeira, and draws attention to its use- 
fulness, in consequence of the weight, solidity and perma- 
nence of its wood. In later years, several cargoes of its 
wood were sent to the Clyde and to Liverpool, where 1t 
* Mora excelsa, Bentham in Linnean Transact. vol. xviii. p. 207- 
