261 



lactescent fungi, those species, which, when cut in pieces, 

 change their colonr at the contact of atmospheric air. 



Though we have referred the palo de vaca to the family 

 of the sapotas, we have nevertheless found in it a great 

 resemblance with some plants of the urticeous kind, espe- 

 cially with the fig-tree, because of it's terminal stipulae in the 

 shape of a horn j and with the brosimum, on account of the 

 structure of it's fruit. Mr. Kunth would even have preferred 

 this last classification ; if the description of the fruit, made 

 on the spot, and the nature of the milk, which is acrid in the 

 urticeae, and sweet in the sapotas, did not seem to confirm 

 the conjecture^ which we have advanced above, p. 215. Mr. 

 Bredemeyer saw, like us, the fruit, and not the flower of 

 the cow-tree. He asserts, that he observed (sometimes ?) 

 two seeds, lying one against the other, as in the alligator 

 pear-tree (laurus persea). Perhaps this botanist had the 

 intention of expressing the same conformation of the nucleus, 

 that Swartz indicates in the description of the brosimum : 

 nucleus bilobus aut bipartibilis. We have mentioned the places 

 where this remarkable tree grows : it will be easy for 

 botanical travellers to procure the flower of the palo de vaca, 

 and to remove the doubts, which still remain, of the family 

 to which it belongs. 



