TEINIDAD. 



63 



Botanists have not yet exhausted the study of the insular flora, which contains 

 no less than 140 species of trees with bark possessing medicinal and especially 

 febrifugal properties ; timber and cabinet-woods are reckoned by the hundreds, 

 nearly all of South American origin, although some West Indian and even 

 African forms occur. Such is the rhypsalis cassytha, a cactus of Angolan origin, 

 and the only member of this family found in the Old World. Amongst the 

 forest giants special veneration is paid to the ceiba (eriodendron anfraeiuosum), 

 which the negroes generally refuse to fell, regarding it as a magic tree. Anyone 



Fig. 20. — View taken at Saint James, Poet of Spain, Trinidad. 



bold enough to apply the axe to its roots without first propitiating it with a bottle 

 of rum, would mevitably die within a year, and other calamities would overtake 

 those throwing stones at it. 



The palm family is represented by numerous species, amongst others the 

 oreodoxa, some of whose stems exceed 150 feet in height; the timit {manicaria) , 

 whose leaves are used for thatching cabins ; the mauricaren aculeata, the 

 desmoncus, and others, armed with foimidable thorns. According to a local 

 tradition, a vessel freighted with coconuts from an island in the Orinoco delta 

 was shipwrecked in 1730 on the east coast of Trinidad, where the nuts washed 



