434 COLOSSAL TREES. 



thidacean on the borders of the Orinoco, whose large fruits are known 

 in Europe as " Brazil nuts," the seeds being enclosed in large woody 

 vessels. The Sapucaya (Lecythis ollaria) is scarcely less abundant, 

 and of immense height. Its fruit, popularly called " Monkey's 

 Drinking-cups " (Cuyas de Macaco), consists of a cup-like vessel, with 

 a circular hole at the top, in which a natural lid fits neatly. When 

 the nuts are ripe this lid becomes loosened, and the heavy cup falls 

 with a crash, scattering the nuts over the ground. 



" What attracted us chiefly," says a traveller in the virgin forests,* 

 " were the colossal trees. The general run had not remarkably thick 

 stems ; the great and uniform height to which they grow without 

 emitting a branch, was a much more noticeable feature than their 

 thickness; but at intervals of a furlong or so a veritable giant towered 

 up. Only one of these monstrous trees can grow within a given 

 Bpace ; it monopolises the domain, and none but individuals of much 

 inferior size can find a footing near it. The cylindrical trunks of 

 these larger trees were generally 20 to 25 feet in circumference. Von 

 Martius mentions having measured trees in the Para district belong- 

 ing to various species (Symphonia coccinea, Lecythis spirula, and 

 Crataeva Tagia), which were 50 to 60 feet in girth at the point where 

 they become cylindrical. The height of the vast column-like stems 

 could not be less than 100 feet from the ground to their lowest 

 branch. Mr. Leavens, at the saw-mills, told me they frequently 

 squared logs for sawing 100 feet long, of the Pas d'Arco and the 

 Massaranduba. The total height of these trees, stem and crown 

 together, may be estimated at from 180 to 200 feet: where one of 

 them stands, the vast dome of foliage rises above the other forest trees 

 as a domed cathedral does above the other buildings in a city. 



"A very remarkable feature in these trees," says Mr. Bates, "is 

 the growth of buttressed-shaped projections around the lower part of 

 their stems. The spaces between these buttresses, which are gener- 

 ally thin walls of wood, form spacious chambers, and may be com- 

 pared to stalls in a stable : some of them are large enough to hold 

 * H. W. Bates, " The Naturalist on the Amazons," pp. 37-39. 



