supplementary to Enc. of Plants, Hort. Brit, and Arb. Brit. 397 



yet flowered in this country. Sir W. J. Hooker has given a general repre- 

 sentation of the tree, which bears a close resemblance in height and shape to 

 the celebrated Woburn Beech as figured in Pontey's Forest Primer as a 

 frontispiece ; and he has given an engraving of the fruit included in the calyx, 

 and the nut of which is about the size of a walnut ; but a nut which we 

 received from Messrs. Loddiges some years ago is a great deal larger. No 

 flowers are given, and the foliage is " done from a living plant in the Glasgow 

 Botanic Garden." 



M. de Humboldt was the first to bring the Cow Tree of Caraccas into 

 notice, in his Relation Historique, vol. ii. p. 106. " Neither the noble shadowy 

 forests," says Humboldt, " nor the majestic current of rivers, nor the mountains, 

 hoary with sempiternal snows, — none of these wonders of tropical regions so 

 riveted my gaze as did this tree, growing on the sides of rocks, its thick roots 

 scarcely penetrating the stony soil, and unmoistened during many months of 

 the year by a drop of dew or rain. But dry and dead as the branches appear, 

 if you pierce the trunk, a sweet and nutritive milk flows forth, which is in the 

 greatest profusion at daybreak. At this time, the blacks and other natives 

 of the neighbourhood hasten from all quarters, furnished with large jugs, to 

 catch the milk, which thickens and turns yellow on the surface. Some drink 

 it on the spot, others carry it home to their children ; and you might fancy 

 you saw the family of a cowherd gathering around him, and receiving from 

 him the produce of his kine." 



The representation of the entire tree was made from a drawing sent home 

 by Sir Robert Ker Porter, in a letter dated Caraccas, June 8. 1837. The tree 

 from which the drawing was made stands about 50 miles from Caraccas, on 

 the steep forest-covered face of a mountain, estimated at 4000 ft. above the 

 level of the sea. 



" The forest was so densely thick and untravelled, that the people who 

 accompanied us were obliged, at almost every step, to cut a way for us 

 through it with their sword-like knives, while the excessive steepness and 

 slippery state of the mountain rendered our advance both tedious and dan- 

 gerous. However, after a couple of toiling days, we reached the group of 

 sought-for trees, surrounded in all directions by others no less wonderful to 

 look upon than themselves. The natives lost no time in making a deep 

 incision into the bark of one, down to the very wood, from which burst 

 forth the milk, white and limpid as that of the cow, sweet to the palate, 

 and accompanied by an aromatic smell, but leaving a strong clamminess on 

 the lips, and upon the tongue a slight bitter. In a quarter of an hour, we 

 filled two bottles with the produce of a couple of trees ; for, as our visit 

 happened to be made during the wane of the moon, instead of at its increase, 

 the lacteal fluid did not flow so freely as it is said to do when drawn during 

 the latter-named stage. 



" The trunk of the Palo de Vaca. from which the drawing was made, 

 measured somewhat more than twenty feet in circumference at about five feet 

 from the root. This colossal stem ran up to a height of sixty feet, perfectly 

 uninterrupted by either leaf or branch ; when its vast arms and minor branches, 

 most luxuriantly clothed with foliage, spread on every side, fully twenty-five 

 or thirty feet from the trunk, and rising to an additional elevation of forty feet, 

 so that this stupendous tree was quite a hundred feet in all. I saw others still 

 larger ; but the state of the weather drove us from our position. The leaves, 

 when in a fresh state, are of a deep dark and polished green, nearly resembling 

 those of the laurel tribe, from ten to sixteen inches long, and two or three 

 inches wide. 



" With regard to the flower, or the flowering season of the tree, I have 

 made enquiries over and over again, from persons who reside in the vicinity of 

 other trees of the kind, in different parts of Venezuela, but they tell me that 

 no one ever saw or heard of the cow tree Jlowering. 



" The imaginary statement of the tree not flowering may be accounted for 

 by the nature of the blossoms, being in all likelihood small and inconspicuous, 



