TROPICAL GARDENS 



sprinkled over the feijoada until the black stew is white and dry. 

 This meal, which is never absent from any Brazilian table, is derived 

 from one of the most important plants known to men, the manioc 

 (Bitter Cassava). The manioc is a Brazilian plant. From time 

 immemorial the Indians have known of its uses, and even to-day 

 they have tales which tell how their ancestors discovered it. And 

 it is really something of a miracle that these primitive people should 

 ever have discovered the fact that the tubers, which grow at the 

 bottom of the trunk, attaining a length of twelve to eighteen inches, 

 are edible, for in their natural state they are poisonous, since their 

 milky sap contains hydrocyanic acid. For the manioc belongs to the 

 Euphorbias, and we have already made the acquaintance of several 

 poisonous plants of this family, so that one would not be inclined 

 to trust any plant from which a white milky sap exudes. The Indians, 

 however, have learned how to roast the tubers, thereby expelling 

 the hydrocyanic acid, and even among the white population, 

 particularly in the interior of the country, one finds everywhere 

 roasting-furnaces of an ancient pattern, built in the open air and 

 protected by a roof; for in the Sertao, and even more so in the wilds 

 of Amazonas, meat and manioc are almost the sole diet of the 

 inhabitants.^ 



The manioc shoots up very quickly, stifling the weeds that grow 

 beneath it, so that the shoots may be planted even in an untilled 

 meadow. One always sees the jungle-like fields of manioc in the 

 neighbourhood of the huts of the field-workers, between the large 

 plantations of sugar-cane and other crops, and the delicately- 

 fingered manioc leaves are beautiful to behold. 



Another kind of manioc (Sweet Cassava), aipim, whose tubers are 

 known as macacheira, is not poisonous. The long tubers are boiled 

 and eaten like potatoes, for the true potato, which the Brazilians 

 call the English potato. Batata ingleza, does not thrive in the tropics, 

 and is not grown north of Rio. Nevertheless, its home is in South 

 America, where it grows on the slopes of the Andes, but in the 

 cooler altitudes. 



In the case of the manioc tubers the long fibres inconvenience 

 the consumer. This peculiarity is absent in the other tropical substi- 

 tute for the potato, the "sweet potato," Batata doce, the tubers of 

 a climbing plant; but these floury, very sweet tubers, as large as 

 a man's fist, cannot be compared with the potato. The same may be 

 said of the Bread-fruit, Frutta poo, the fruit of a sturdy tree, whose 

 t The starch extracted from manioc is the tapioca of commerce (Tr.). 



