usually a dark, glossy green. The ripened capsule of 
Hevea microphylla is truly a thing of beauty. 
The shape of the fruit is characteristic. It is definitely 
triangular in cross section and pyramidal in longitudinal 
section, coming to a point. Even when fully ripe, it does 
not swell to a rounded condition, but the dorsal surfaces 
of the carpel wall retain their more or less flattened shape 
with prominently swollen dendritic veins. It is this curi- 
ous trigonous and pointed shape which, in suggesting the 
shape of the head of the fish called sarapo, is responsible 
for one of the common names of the plant—seringueira 
sarapo (Ducke in Bol. Téen. Inst. Agron. Norte 10 (1946) 
21). 
The shape and size of the seeds are unusually con- 
stant. The seed is characteristic in being more or less 
triangular-ovate in outline, grayish brown with large, 
irregular, dark chocolate-brown spots. 
Nor is the fruit the only structure of Hevea microphylla 
which exhibits an outstanding peculiarity. The pistillate 
flowers—the largest of the genus—are provided with an 
extraordinarily enlarged torus which persists, even in the 
young fruit, as a fleshy collar. 
The bark of Hevea microphylla is consistently thin— 
averaging about one-half a centimeter at about three feet 
from the base—and hard, often even brittle. Externally, 
it is usually smooth and of a tan-brown or reddish tan 
color; internally, there seems to be some variation, for 
a few of the trees examined were whitish or yellowish, 
others were tan, and a few were definitely reddish. 
There are two remarkable and constant bark charac- 
ters, however, which demand a note. One is the very 
thin, glossy and bright red bark of the young branches 
or flushes of the past year. This character has been seen 
elsewhere, so far as my own field experience is concerned, 
only in Hevea nitida. The other character is the ease 
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