MUCURI, VI9OZA, CARAVELLAS, &:c. 



239 



and leaves are prickly. The fruit is a small black nut, containing 

 an eatable kernel. If the pinnulm are broken, delicate green threads 

 appear, which are very strong, and are twisted into twine, which is 

 used to make fine green fishing-nets, and for other purposes. 



With all the characteristic differences which these various species 

 of palms present to the eye of the botanist, most of them have one 

 general form ; that of the cocos genus, with a slender stem, which in 

 some is thicker above, in others below, and in others again every 

 where equal ; in most kinds it is furnished with raised rings, annu- 

 lated, or rather scaly on the upper part ; the leaves are feathered, 

 like ostrich feathers, gently and beautifully arched, partly with 

 pmnulce that are curled and somewhat rolled up, partly erect ; 

 they are curled, and of a silver colour in the Imhuri ; gently bent 

 like a feather in the Jissara; rising high, and spreading strong 

 and broad in all directions, and hanging down to the ground in the 

 beautiful lofty Ndain ; shooting perpendicularly upwards to a great 

 height in the Piassaba, (Sec. 



It appears from what I have said that the country through which 

 I travelled is much poorer in varieties of palms than the regions of the 

 South American continent, situated nearer to the equa4:or, where 

 Humboldt met with a great multiplicity of these magnificent plants, 

 of which we find a most pleasing description in his admirable " Views 

 of Nature." Next to the palm form, comes, in the high regions of 

 the Andes of Peru, that of the arboraceous ferns, (Jilix,) which we 

 do not find on the east coast of Brazil, though some modern works on 

 that country erroneously place it there. The low species of plants of 

 this family are, on the other hand, very numerous and various, both 

 on the ground and on trees. Among them, the mertensia dichotoma is 

 conspicuous, on the Mucuri, and in the country about Caravellas : it 

 rises pretty high among the trees, and may be known by its growing 

 double. Its smooth bright brown stem is cleared of the pith by the 



) 



