288 The Andes and the Amazon. 



pod-bearing trees, colossal nnt trees, broad-leaved Musacese 

 or bananas, and giant grasses. The most prominent palms 

 are the architectural Pupunha, or " peach-pahn," with spiny 

 stems, drooping, deep green leaves, and bunches of mealy, 

 nutritious fruit ; the slender Assai, with a graceful head of 

 dehcate green plumes ; the Ubussii, with mammoth, undi- 

 vided fronds ; the stiff, serrated4eaved Bussii, and gigantic 

 Miritl One of the noblest trees of the forest is the Mas- 

 sarandiiba, or "cow-tree" {Brosimiom gcdactodendron), 

 often rising one hundred and fifty feet. It is a hard, fine- 

 grained, durable timber, and has a red bark, and leathery, fig- 

 like foliage. The milk has the consistency of cream, and may 

 be used for tea, coffee, or custards. It hardens by exposure, 

 so as to resemble gutta-percha. Another interesting tree, 

 and one which yields the chief article of export, is the Cau- 

 cho, or India-rubber tree* {8i])honia Brasiliensis)^ growing 

 in the lowlands of the Amazon for eighteen hundred miles 

 above Para. It has an erect, tall trunk, from forty to eighty 

 feet high, a smooth, gray bark, and thick, glossy leaves. The 

 milk resembles thick, yellow cream, and is colored by a 

 dense smoke obtained by burning palm-nuts. It is gather- 

 ed between August and December. A man can collect six 

 pounds a day, though this is rarely done. It is frequently 

 adulterated with sand. The tree belongs to the same apet- 

 alous family as our castor-oil and the mandioca; while 

 the tree which furnishes the caoutchouc of the East Indies 

 and Afi'ica is a species of Ficus, and yields an inferior ar- 

 ticle to the rubber of America. Other characteristic trees 

 are the Mongruba, one of the few which shed their foliage 



* The Portuguese and Brazilians call it seringa, or syringe, in which form it 

 is still used extensively, injections forming a great feature in the poi^ular sys- 

 tem of cures. The tree mentioned above yields most of the rubber of com- 

 merce, and is considered distinct from the species in Guiana, S. elastica ; 

 while the rubber from the Upper Amazon and Rio Kegro comes from the S. 

 hitea and S. hrevifolia. Agassiz puts milk-weed in the same family ! 



