378 EXPLANATORY INDEX. 



and rising to the height of a hundred and fifty feet. From 

 its bark, when cut, exudes a milky white sap, which, when 

 congealed, produces a gum partaking of the properties of 

 caoutchouc and gutta percha. This gum appears not to 

 have reached the English market. 



Once in every five years it bears an abundant store of ex- 

 cellent fruit, much like an English plum, and the tree is so 

 gigantic that a single trunk will produce a log of a yard 

 square and a hundred feet in length. The wood is superior 

 to oak except for shipbuilding, sea water injuring its other- 

 wise incorruptible texture. Like the cotton-tree (q.v.), the 

 trunk throws out spurs of great size. 



The timber merchants call it Bullet, or Bully-tree, and as 

 the wood is not injured by weather, it is used for house- 

 frames, posts, and shingles. Another kind of Bullet -wood 

 is procured from the Sapota Mulleri. 



BUSHMASTER. See " Couanacouchi." 



BUSH-ROPE. This is a general name applied to a vast 

 number of climbing plants, which grow in the remarkable 

 way described by Waterton. They are also known by the 

 popular name of Liana. Schomburgk gives the following 

 description of one species of Bush-Rope : 



" As we forced our way through the wood, we were greeted, 

 from time to time, by the finest perfume, which we traced to 

 a liana, or creeper, and one of the Bush-ropes of the colonists. 

 Its sweet-smelling plant was Schnella brachystachya, with 

 white flowers, of which the largest patch was spotted with 

 pink, growing in voluminous clusters, its stem twisted and 

 contorted in so remarkable a manner, as well to deserve the 

 name of Bush-rope. 



u To describe the various ways in which these twists and 

 contortions take place would be difficult. Sometimes the stem 

 is as delicate as a ribbon, while at others it presents a bundle 

 of stems so closely twined together, as to make it no easy 

 matter to separate them with an axe." 



Some of these Bush-Ropes are very pliant ; will bear any 



