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SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS 



VOL. 74 



was secured regarding economic applications of the plants of the 

 country. Salvador is especiall}- rich in valuable cabinet woods, a 

 remarkably large number of plants with fruits or other parts that are 

 edible occur, and hundreds, probably, of the native plants are em- 

 ployed by the country people because of real or supposed medicinal 

 properties. The most interesting of all the native plants is the balsam 



Fig. 67. — Basaltic formation in the Department of 

 La Libertad, Salvador. 



tree {Tolitifcra pcrcirac), from whose sap is secured the article 

 known as Salvadorean balsam or sometimes, erroneously, as balsam 

 of Peru, because of the former belief that it came from Peru. Al- 

 though this tree is widely distributed in tropical America, the balsam 

 is gathered almost exclusively in Salvador, and in a limited portion 

 of the country, known as the Balsam Coast. Other noteworthy trees 

 are the giant ceibas and the auiatcs (ficiis spp. ) or wild tigs, which 

 are sometimes called the "national tree" of .Salvador. Thev are 



