114 



THE NOBTHERN MOU^'TAINS. 



large liandsome flowers. A group of the innunierable 

 stamens have grown together on one side of the flower into 

 a hood, wliich bends over the stigma and the other stamens. 

 Tall trees they are, and glorious to behold, when in full 

 flower ; but they are notorious mostly for their huge fruits 



and delicious nuts. One of 

 their finest forms, and the 

 only one which the traveller 

 is likely to see often in Trini- 

 dad, is the Cannon-ball tree.-^ 

 There is a grand specimen 

 in the Botanic Garden; and 

 several may be met with in 

 any day's ride through the 

 high woods, and distinguished 

 at once from any other tree. 

 The stem rises, without a 

 fork, for sixty feet or more, and 

 rolls out at the top into a 

 head very like that of an elm 

 trimmed up, and like an elm 

 too in its lateral water-boughs. For the whole of the stem, 

 from the very ground to the forks, and the larger fork- 

 branches likewise, are feathered all over with numberless 



1 Com'oupita Guianensis. 



Cannon-ball Tree. 



