252 



STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF T»E 



CHAPTER XIII. 



SOME ACCOUNT OF THE MORE CONSPICUOUS VEGETABLE 



PRODUCTIONS- CABBAGE-TREES SILK-COTTON PI- 



PEIRAS BULLET-TREE IRON-WOOD LAUNA, &C. 



I NOW proceed to a description of the vegetables which are 

 natural to this part of the world, and which, from their utility 

 or curiosity, are most worthy of popular attention. Here I 

 must necessarily be select. Volumes might easily be filled 

 with a description of the plants which may be found in the 

 plantations and woods of Guyana, but any thing like a com- 

 prehensive treatise is beyond my range of information. 



The cabbage-tree grows to about the height of a hundred 

 feet. Its trunk is seven or eight feet in circumference, straight, 

 upright, tapering, and covered by a grey bark. The branches 

 commence at about a hundred feet from the earth ; they are 

 twenty feet in length, of a green colour, and diverge in a 

 horizontal direction. The leaves are about two feet and a 

 half in length, and three inches in breadth near the trunk. 



