Book VI.  Yland of BARBADOS. 
They will grow, trailing along the Surface of the Earth, to often above 
twenty Feet in Length. The main Branches are thickly cover’d with two 
regular Sets of lefler Side-ones: Thefe, as well as the Prickles they are 
guarded with, grow always oppofite one to another, and by their 
contrary Pofition cutting, as it were, the larger Branches at right 
Angles; by which means, look which way you will, thefe leffer Branches 
make the Appearance of a Crofs. Its Leaves are very flender, arifing in 
Tufts three, four, or five, in Number ; thefe are generally much torn and 
eaten by Vermin. It bears upon fhort Footftalks Groups of very {mall 
monopetalous bell-fathion’d Flowers, whofe Stamina are tipp’d with Apices: 
Thefe, which are of a dark-yellow Colour, have a faint weak Smell, and 
are fucceeded by burry roundifh Katkins, which are fo very clammy, and 
full of very fmall fharp-hooked Prickles, that if a Bird alights upon them, 
they fo entangle in its Feathers, that it will not be able to fly away. 
The SNAKE-W ood. 
HO?’ this is but a {lender Tree, feldom above fix Inches Diameter, 
even near the Ground; yet it fometimes grows to be above forty 
Feet high. It hath no Leaves, nor feldom Branches, till near the Top: 
There it is furrounded with Leaves fimilar to thofe of the Popo-Tree. ‘The 
Trunk appears very knotty, if not jointed. The Infide is hollow, and the 
Whole fo light, that a weak Man may eafily brandifh a Piece as. big as 
Goliah’s Beam, or Hercules’s Club. I have never known it to produce either 
Seed, Flowers, or Fruit. This is delineated in Plate X. Fig. 2. 
The May-PoLe; Lat. Aloe Americana muricata. 
Bae very remarkable Tree hath a great tnany ftrong ftringy Roots. 
The Trunk, which is very ftrait and tapering, is always green; 
its Bark, very neatly divided into feveral clofe alternate Scales, or Lamina, 
of a triangular Shape, fharp-pointed at their Extremities. Each of thefe, 
as well as the Branches of the Flowers, leffen in Bulk, as they draw near 
to the Summit of the Tree, which is often above thirty-five Feet high, 
and three Feet in Circumference near the Ground ; yet this furprifing 
Magnitude is but the Growth of three Months time. The green woody 
Leaves, which furround it at the Bottom, are many in Number, each 
being from three to four Feet long, about feven Inches broad, and three 
thick, ending always in a black horny Point: One of thefe Leaves often 
weighs fix Pounds. The Trunk of the Tree, about twelve Feet from its 
Summit, thrufts out a great Number of ftrong green fhort Branches in an 
alternate Order : Thefe different Branches, with their refpe@tive Flowers, 
have been always thought (and not unjuftly) to refemble the Branches of 
the Candleftick in the Temple of Solomon : Each Candleftick or Branch 
fuftains an horizontal Group of Flowers near twenty-five Inches in Circum- 
L1l ference ; 
22 
a 
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