300 POPULAR GEOGRAPHY OF PLANTS. 



thought that even in the southern extremity of Brazil we 

 saw no sights more beautiful than those we see here ; for no 

 less beautiful than peculiar is the appearance of the whole 

 rows of Macauba Palms (Acrocomia sclerocarpa) which skirt 

 the river-side, covered by a most beautiful climbing plant, 

 called Clusia alia, which, like the flattened Pig-trees in 

 Luzon, forms a cylindrical tube round the stems of these 

 Palms to the height of thirty feet, from the surface of which 

 spring the leaves and short branches, bearing beautiful 

 white blossoms, as large as the white Camellia, and very 

 much like it in appearance, the whole overshadowed from 

 above by the noble crown of the spreading Palm.* 



Such sights at the beginning of our journey raise high 

 expectations, and we hopefully bend our steps in a southerly 

 direction, through the province of Goyaz. "We find much 

 of the land brought into cultivation, and covered, with plan- 

 tations of Sugar, Rice, and Mandiocca (or Cassava] ; and 



* The Clusias (Guttiferce), though sometimes spoken of as parasites, like 

 the tropical Ferns and Orchises hefore mentioned, are equally undeserving of 

 the epithet in its strict sense, because they are by no means rooted, like pa- 

 rasites, upon the substance of the trees which support them, thriving at their 

 expense on the nourishment they extract repaying benefits by injury ; on 

 the contrary, the Clusias simply cling to the nobler tree, like a trusting and 

 inseparable friend, bestowing beauty in return for strength and support. 



