A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



golden-yellow fruits which vary in size from the bigness of a plum 

 to that of an apple. They have a sourish, aromatic flavour, and a 

 faint smell of turpentine. The fruits of a Japanese tree, which the 

 Brazilians call simply plums, ameixas, have also a sourish-sweet 

 flavour. This tree is grown in the highlands of Sao Paulo; its 

 apricot-yellow fruit is like the Mirabelle plum or the Italian medlar, 

 which is the nearest relative of this "woolly medlar," the leaf of 

 which has a yellow, woolly underside. But one must not allow the 

 pleasant flavour of this fruit to tempt one to excessive indulgence, 

 as a newcomer of my acquaintance learned to his cost, for the 

 Japanese medlar is a powerful aperient. So is the fruit of the 

 Zaboticaba, which grows in the more temperate regions of Brazil, 

 but also in the Sertao of the North-east ; a handsome, wide-spreading 

 myrtle-tree, whose globular fruits, about the size of the Mirabelle 

 plum, sit close on the trunk like dusky pearls. If one bites the dis- 

 tended skin it bursts with a little crack, and the white, juicy pulp 

 gushes into the mouth. It is sweet, and has the flavour of the black 

 currant. One spits out the large stone. 



Among the absolutely overwhelming variety of Brazilian fruits it 

 is possible to select a graduated series, ranging from, those which 

 are powerful aperients to those which have a constipating action, 

 so that one can regulate the activity of the intestine by suitable 

 doses of natural physic : a very important matter in the tropics, 

 where a regular action of the bowels is essential to good health. 



Since most of the tropical fruits are extremely sweet, one is thankful 

 now and then to come across a really acid fruit. Such a one is the 

 Pitanga, a pretty, angular fruit of a luminous red, which gleams 

 in the hedges, and with which the paths in the Benedictines' garden 

 in Olinda were bordered. In the woods of the Gorcovado there is 

 a raspberry, finer in appearance than our European raspberry, but 

 less rich in flavour. The orange-red Kaki fig is beautiful to look at ; 

 it is much cultivated in the south of Brazil. The fruit is unusually 

 succulent and sweet, but unless it is perfectly ripe it draws the mouth. 



On the branches and trunk of the mighty Jaca tree, always a 

 cheering sight with its deep-green, glittering foliage, the bright 

 green, prickly fruits, large as melons, present a very strange appear- 

 ance (Plate 22). If one cuts one of these great fruits in two one finds 

 a number of kidney-shaped kernels, each surrounded by a slimy, 

 fibrous yellow pulp, which is sweet and very aromatic, like scented 

 cream; but the stomach easily rebels against it. For that matter, 

 many of the tropical fruits seem more like the work of the confec- 

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