GBO5VTH OF THE BEBTHOLiJKTIA. 451 



of Brazil-nuts ; and it was long believed that, like the fruit 

 of the pekea, they grew on separate stalks. They have 

 furnished an article of trade for a century past to the 

 inhabitants of Grand Para, by whom they are sent either 

 directly to Europe, or to Cayenne, where they are called 

 touka. The celebrated botanist, Correa de Serra, told us 

 that this tree abounds in the forests in the neighbourhood 

 of Macapa, at the mouth of the Amazon ; that it there bears 

 the name of capucaya, and that the inhabitants gather the 

 almonds, like those of the lecvthis, to express the oil. A 

 rargo of almonds of the juvia, brought into Havre, captured 

 by a privateer, in 1807, was employed for the same pur- 

 pose. 



The tree that yields the Brazil-nuts is generally not more 

 than two or three feet in diameter, but attains one hundred 

 or one hundred and twenty feet in height. It does not 

 resemble the mammee-tree, the star-apple, and several other 

 trees of the tropics, the branches of which (as in the laurel- 

 trees of the temperate zone) rise almost straight towards the 

 sky. The branches of the bertholletia are open, very long, 

 almost entirely bare towards the base, and loaded at their 

 summits with tufts of very close foliage. This disposition of 

 the semicoriaceous leaves, which are a little silvery on their 

 under part, and more than two feet long, makes the branches 

 bend down toward the ground, like the fronds of the palm- 

 tree. We did not see this majestic tree in blossom: it is not 

 loaded with flowers* till in its fifteenth year, and they 

 appear about the end of March and the beginning of April. 

 The fruits ripen towards the end of May, and some trees 

 retain them till the end of August. These fruits, which are 

 as large as the head of a child, often twelve or thirteen inches 

 in diameter, make a very loud noise in falling from the 

 tops of the trees. Nothing is more fitted to fill the mind 

 with admiration of the force of organic action in the equi- 

 noctial zone than the aspect of those great ligneous peri- 

 carps, for instance, the cocoa-tree (lodoicea) of the Maldives 



According to accounts somewhat vague, thsy are yellow, very large, 

 and have some similitude to those of the Bombax ceiba. M. Bonpland 

 says, however, in his botanical journal written on the banks of the Rio 

 Negro, " flos violaceus." It was thus the Indians of the river had 

 described to him the colour of the corolla. 



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