APPENDIX— PHYTOLOGY. 



521 



the point of a bayonet. Marvellous cures are related of this vegetable, which is said to regenerate 

 the sight ; experiments have been made by perforating the eye of a cock with sharp instruments, and 

 on applying the juice or even the milk of this herb it is asserted that the eye has been cured in a 

 few hours, and the sight restored. The curucu, whose juice, when drunk with water, is an effica- 

 cious stiptic for a bleeding at the mouth. There is also hetony, ground-ivy, but very different from 

 that of Europe, with a leaf resembling the rosemary, and a small white flower in a species of arti- 

 choke; the herva ferro (iron herb); the herbs mercury, curucucu, and mallows; oreiha d' onca, 

 (ear of the ounce,) generally two feet in height, the leaf like a heart, flat, and hairy on both sides, 

 of a pearl colour, and as flexible when dried as when green ; the plant called hervachumbo ; and 

 many others. 



Sapucaya is a high tree of good timber, with a leaf similar to that of the peach ; the bark, 

 softened, produces a tow for caulking vessels. Its produces a very large spherical nut, full of long 

 almonds. For their extraction nature has formed an orifice at the extremity four inches in diameter, 

 covered with a lid of the same size, which has over it an outer riud similar to that of the whole nut, 

 and of which it is necessary to strip it in order to find the entrance. The monkeys, by instinct, 

 shake off this species of cocoa-nut when ripe, and with a stone, or hard piece of wood displace the 

 lid and eat the almonds. 



St. Caetano is a delicate plant, resembling that of a water-melon ; its fruit is a species of small 

 cucumber and thorny ; it opens in three portions when ripe, exhibiting some small seed similar to 

 those of the pomegranite. It is the sustenance of birds, who, carrying its seed, propagate it in all 

 parts. This plant is applied to various domestic purposes, and augments the properties of soap in 

 its ordinary use ; on this account it was transplanted from the coast of Guinea, where it is called 

 Nheziken, and being planted near a chapel of St. Caetano, took the name of that saint. 



Tababuya is a tree remarkable for the lightness of its wood, of which scarcely any thing is made 

 besides corks and floats for fishing-nets ; it resists all instruments except such as are used for cork- 

 cutting. 



Taruman is a shrub with lancet leaves of unequal size; the tea of these leaves have a diluent 

 effect upon stones in the bladder, 



Theu is a delicate sipo or plant of long and flexible shoots, scarcely exceeding the thickness of a 

 hen's quil, but of extraordinary growth, always winding round other larger plants and trees. I have 

 seen them so firmly entwined round orange-trees that the prosperity and fructification of the tree 

 was impeded by them ; its leaf is exceedingly small, resembling that of the broom ; the root is nearly 

 two yards in length, having a strong smell, and operating as an emetic, and is an approved remedy 

 against the venom of snakes. 



A great diversity of piratical trees or plants are observed in the Brazil, fixed to the bark or body 

 of others, and nourished alone by their substance. In some parts there are divers species of 

 climbers which rise to the top of the highest trees, sometimes unaccompanied, at other times twisted 

 spirally with another of the same, or of a different species. Occasionally these prodigiously long 

 cords have four, six, or more legs, or shoots. 



TiNGUY is a small tree with the branches and leaves alternate; the latter are small and lancet. 

 The bark and leaves well pounded, and put into lakes, &c. cause the fish to die, from becoming soon 

 intoxicated with it. 



The Urucu does not in general exceed the size of a large shrub ; the leaves are in the form of a 

 heart, and the flowers in bunches with fine petals a little purpled, a pistil, and a great number of 



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