6 



organs, which in the temperate zone can be 

 procured only by the processes of art *. 



We arrived on the third day at the Caribbee 

 missions of Cari. We observed, that the ground 

 was less cracked by the drought in this country 

 than in the Llanos of Calabozo. Some showers 

 had revived the vegetation. Small gramina, 

 and especially those herbaceous sensitive plants, 

 that are so useful in fattening half-wild cattle, 

 formed a thick turf. A few fan palms (corypha 

 tectorum), rhopalas-j- (chaparro), and malpig- 

 hias | with coriaceous and glossy leaves, arose 

 at great distances from each other. The humid 

 spots are recognized at a distance by groups of 

 mauritia, which are the sago-trees of those coun- 

 tries. Near the coast this palm-tree constitutes 



* Vol. v, p. 286. 

 f The proteaceoe are not, like the araucaria, an exclusive- 

 ly southern form. (Kotzebue, Reise, vol. iii, p. 13.) We 

 found the rhopala complicata, and the r. obovata, in 2° 30' 

 and in 10° of north latitude. See our Nov. Gen., vol. ii, p. 

 153. 



% A neighbouring genus, byrsonima cocollobctfolia, b. lau- 

 rifolia near Matagorda, and b. ropalctfolia. The Euro- 

 pean planters, who from the feeblest analogies believe, that 

 they find every where the plants of their own country in the 

 vegetation of the tropics, call the malpighia, alcornoque (cork- 

 tree), no doubt on account of the suberous bark of the trunk. 

 This bark contains tannin ; and in another malpighia (byrso- 

 nima moureila), which is the febrifuge tree of Cayenne, the 

 quinquina, or cinchonin is supposed, not without reason, to 

 exist united with the tannin. 



