Popenoe: The Jaboticaba 



319 



A JABOTICABA TREE 



One of the handsomest trees of Brazil, and highly prized on account of its delicious fruit, 

 seems to be adapted to a wide range of distribution in the tropics. (Fig. 11.) 



It 



GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION. 



The geographic distribution of the 

 jaboticaba is rather wide, ranging from 

 Rio Grande do Sul on the south to 

 Minas Geraes on the north, and from 

 the Atlantic ocean to Goyaz and Matto 

 Grosso on the west, a larger area than 

 one would at first imagine from the 

 propinquity of these states on the map. 

 Outside of this region occasional trees 

 are found in cultivation, as at Bahia, 

 where the plant does not seem to be at 

 home, however, and is rarely grown. 

 Around the city of Rio de Janeiro the 

 jaboticaba is one of the features of 

 gardens and orchards, its dense, dome- 

 shaped head of foliage, of an unusual 

 shade of light green, marking it off from 

 other fruit trees and making it a feature 

 of the landscape. Not only single trees, 

 but small orchards, sometimes an acre 



or more in extent, are not infrequent, 

 being more common, perhaps, in the 

 state of Minas Geraes than near the city 

 of Rio. The esteem in which the 

 jaboticaba is held by the Brazilians is 

 attested by these orchard plantings, for 

 in a country where the culture of tree 

 fruits as a whole has not reached the 

 stage where regular orchard plantings 

 for commercial purposes are commonly 

 made, the presence of a planting of four 

 or five hundred trees of one variety 

 proves the popularity of that fruit to 

 be exceptional. 



From the level of the sea the zone of 

 the jaboticaba extends to altitudes of 

 3,000 feet or even more. At Petropolis 

 and Nova Friburgo it grows and fruits 

 well, as it does at Barbacena, in Minas 

 Geraes, where the altitude is given as 

 1,168 meters. In this section of Brazil, 

 however, the winters are not very cold 



