CARATS AND COCORITES. 71 



Most of them were the common species of the island ' in 

 which the pinn?e of the leaves grow in fours and fives, 

 and at different angles from the leaf-stalk, giving the whole 

 a brushy appearance, which takes oif somewhat from the 

 perfectness of its beauty. But among them we saw for 

 the first and last time in the forest a few of a far more 

 beautiful species,- common on the mainland. In it, the 

 pinnae are set on all at the same distance apart, and all 

 in the same plane, in opposite sides of the stalk, giving to 

 the whole foliage a grand simplicity ; and producing, when the 

 curving leaf-points toss in the breeze, that curious appearance 

 which I mentioned in an earlier chapter, of green glass wheels 

 with rapidly revolving spokes. At their feet grew the pine- 

 apples, only in flower or unripe fruit, so' that we could not 

 quench our thirst with them, and only looked with curiosity 

 at the small wild type of so famous a plant. But close by, 

 and happily nearly ripe, we found a fair substitute for pine- 

 apples in the fruit of the Karatas. This form of Bromelia, 

 closelv allied to the Pinouin of which hedcres are made, bears a 

 straggling plume of prickly leaves, six or eight feet long each, 

 close to the ground. The forester looks foy a plant in which 

 the leaves drooj) outwards a sign that the fruit is ripe. 

 After beating it cautiously (for snakes are very fond of coil- 

 ing under its shade) he opens the centre, and finds, close to 



^ Maximiliana Caribtea. ^ ^I. regia. 



