537 



I recognise this in an: imperfect engraving of 

 Clusius*. This botanist designates them under 

 the name of almendras del Peru. They had no 

 doubt been carried, as a very rare fruit, to the 

 Upper Maragnon, and thence, by the Cordil- 

 leras, to Quito and Peru. The Novus Orbis of 

 Jean de Laet, in which I found the first ac- 

 count of the cow-tree, furnishes also a descrip- 

 tion and a figure singularly exact of the fruit of 

 the bertholletia. Laet calls the tree totocke, 

 and mentions the drupe f of the size of the 



f Exoticor., lib. 2, cap. 18, p. 44. Clusius distinguishes 

 very properly the almendras del Peru, our bertholletia excelsa, 

 or juvia, (fructus amygdalae-nucleo, triungularis, dorso lato, 

 in bina latera angulosa desinente, rugosus, paululum cunei- 

 formis) from the pekea, or amygdala guayauica (Exot., lib. 

 ii, cap. 6, p 4 27). Raleigh, who knew none of the produc- 

 tions of the Upper Oroonoko, does not speak of the juvia ; 

 but it appears, that he first brought to Europe the fruit of the 

 mauritia palm, of which we have so often spoken. (See 

 Clus. Exot., lib. xvi, cap. 4, p. 25. Fructus elegantissimus, 

 squamosus, similis palmae-pini.) 



+ The following is the remarkable description, for which 

 botanists have scarcely looked in a work merely geogra- 

 phical, published in 1640. " Arbor (adcmonie) totocke est 

 valde procera et ramosa : foliis grandibus et quae forma non 

 multum abludunt ab ulmi frondibus, obscure viridcntibus, 

 nisi quod postica parte nonnihil videntur candicare. Nullos 

 fert flores sed certas gemmas quae colore nihil difFerunt a 

 foliis, quae sensim crassescunt et protrudunt fructum grandem 

 et mole interdum capitis humani, pene rotundum antica parte 

 nonnihil compressum, cortice ligneo, duro et admodum 



