TEE PALM TREES OF BRAZIL. 



407 



reach across the vast marshy meadows. In that part of the continent 

 it is not so extensively used,* but it is nevertheless one of the chief 

 building timbers of that region, and its fruits are eaten by the natives, 

 the tender phylophore is eaten as a vegetable, while the leaves are used 

 for thatch, for fans, straw hats and cordage. This carnauba, or caranda, 

 ac it is called in the upper Paraguay region, is one of a few social 

 palms. 









1 4 ^ UoJmII^:^ 





lH^lt^!^'*^ 



Fig. 23. Carnauba Paljis on the Paeaguay Rivek. 



The Coco. — The coco palm (or cocoa as we erroneously call it) is 

 not a native of South America, but it is extensively grown, especially 

 along the sandy seashore from Caravellas, Bahia, northward. From 

 Caravellas to the mouth of the Amazon, a distance of about two 

 thousand miles, probably half the way the beach is flat and sandy and 

 is actually used for growing coco palms. And it is worthy of note 

 that these sandy beaches are of little or no value for other agricultural 

 purposes. Almost everywhere these coco-palm groves are thickly 

 though not conspicuously inhabited. The villages and even towns of 

 considerable size that spring up in the groves are made up for the 

 most part of people of the poorer classes who pass here an ideal 

 tropical life. The posts and lath of the houses are made of the palm 

 trunks, the roofs are made of the leaves, their food and drink are taken 

 from the inside coco shells; the nuts are eaten green and ripe in a 



* Herbert H. Smith thinks this palm different from the carnaliba of CearS 

 ('Do Rio de Janeiro a Cuyaba,' p. 366), but Barbosa Rodriguez, the Brazilian 

 botanist, says they are the same ('Palmae mattogrossenses,' p. 1). Morong 

 reports the Copernicia cerifera and describes two new species from Paraguay. 

 'Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci.,' VII., 245-247. 



