MUCURI, VlfOZA, CARAVELLAS, Scc. 



237 



tree is of majestic growth, and the finest of the palms of this country; 

 there were some large noble trees of this kind on the Lagoa 

 d'Arara. 



6. Cocos de Palmitto, on the Rio Doce, and in the more southern 

 parts ; northwards on the Mucuri, called Cocos de Jissara. It is the 

 most elegant of all. The stem is very tall and slender ; the crown 

 small, consisting of eight or ten very beautiful bright green leaves, 

 which are thickly feathered, and seem arched like ostrich feathers. 

 Under the crown of leaves, the silver grey stem of the tree has a 

 bright green excrescence three or four feet long, containing the 

 young leaves and flowers, like a pith, which is eaten, and called 

 pahnitt. Between the woody part of the stem and the green excres- 

 cence containing the pith, the yellow bunch of flowers breaks out 

 and hangs down. The bunch of fruit is small, with little black nuts, 

 scarcely of the size of a hazel-nut. 



7. Cocos de Guriri {the pissajido of the Indians.) A dwarf palm, 

 which grows in the sand on the sea-shore : with smooth leaves, but 

 arched like a feather ; the pinnulce are often a little rolled inwards, 

 and at the same time double. Next to the ground it has a spica or 

 spadix, with little nuts on it, which at their root are rather pointed 

 and covered with a sweet yellow red pulp, which is here eaten. 



8. Cocos de Piassaha, or Piafaha ; one of the most useful, most 

 remarkable, and at the same time most beautiful species ; the fruit 

 is of the size and shape of No. 5, and rather pointed. It begins to 

 appear about Porto Seguro, and from that place northwards becomes 

 more and more frequent, and is most plentiful in the district of 

 Ilheos. Its stem is high and strong, the pinnulce on the leaves stand 

 rather detached, but all t\iQ frondes shoot upright, and do not bend 

 down as in the other kinds ; hence this singular palm has the appear- 

 ance of a Turkish plume of herons^ feathers. The sheath, when it 

 withers, falls into very long, small woody fibres, which are twisted 



