NUTS. 287 



but Humboldt did not find that the people among whom 

 he travelled availed themselves of any such precaution. 



The juvia-tree has been assigned to the natural order 

 Myrtacce, but since the leaves, set alternately like those 

 of the myrtle, are yet not characterized like them by being 

 marked with pellucid dots, it is separated by Lindley into 

 a distinct family termed Lecythidce, including also its near 

 ally the LecytJiis ollaria or ^#wm/0,atreenumbered among 

 the most gigantic of the ancient forests of Brazil, and the 

 seeds of which are the Sapucai Nuts, which during the last 

 few years have occasionally made their appearance in 

 London fruit shops. Resembling the Brazil Nut in size, 

 colour, and general form, they are more elegant in appear- 

 ance, owing to the surface of the shell being channelled 

 lengthwise into regular flutings ; while the woody case in 

 which they are inclosed is also more elaborately modelled 

 than the mere globular outer shell of the juvia, it being 

 an urn-shaped vessel,* the upper part of which forms a 

 lid, which opens after the fruit is ripe, scattering abroad 

 the nuts. The flowers of the LecytUdce tribe have six 

 petals and numerous stamens, a portion of which are in 

 botanical language " collected into a petaloid body," one 

 petal, quite distinct from the surrounding corolla, rising 

 in the midst and turning over, forming a hood-like shelter 

 to the central stamens. The fruit of every species of Le- 

 cytliis is eatable, though it is said by the natives that those 

 who partake too freely of the nuts of one variety are apt 

 to lose their hair ; and the bark of one kind, said by some 

 to be this very ollaria which bears the Sapucai Nuts, is 

 much used by the natives of Brazil as wrappers for cigars, 

 being easily separated by beating into a number of fine 

 distinct layers, which divide so neatly from each other that 

 they have the appearance of sheets of thin satiny paper. 



There are two or three other kinds of nuts which, 

 though rarely forming a portion of our dessert in this 

 country, are yet well known, by name at least, to most 

 people, and whose general exclusion from the company of 

 their more favoured brethren is due, perhaps, to the capri- 



See Plate I. fig. 6. 



