i8 
NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
CHAP. 
branches of trees) being in great part hung too high 
up to be much in the way ; whereas in woods of 
recent growth (caapoera), and in the low gapo 
that sometimes skirts the rivers, they have not 
yet got hoisted high enough to allow one to pass 
beneath them, but bar the way with an awful 
array of entangled, looped, and knotted ropes, 
which even the sword itself can sometimes with 
difficulty unloose. 
The noblest trees in the forests of Tauau were 
the Bertholletiae, and one specimen was perhaps as 
large a tree as I have anywhere seen in the Amazon 
valley. Its nearly cylindrical trunk, not at all 
dilated at the base, measured 42 feet in circum- 
ference, and at 50 feet from the ground it seemed 
almost fully as thick. It began to branch at about 
100 feet, so that its crown rose high above the 
surrounding trees, but I could not see it distinctly 
enough to be able to form an idea of the entire 
height. I suppose the Bertholletiae and Eriodendra 
(Silk-cotton trees, in Lingoa Geral, Samailma) to 
be the loftiest trees in the Amazon valley ; but I 
unfortunately never saw an entire trunk of any 
well -grown specimen prostrate ; I was, however, 
assured by the Messrs. Campbell and others that 
trees of these genera had been measured and 
found full 200 feet long. In the forest at the 
back of Para I measured a fallen, leafless tree 
(genus and species unknown) which was 157 feet 
long, and when the top was entire it might have 
been 10 or even 20 feet longer. On the Rio 
Negro I have cut down and measured so many 
trees, including some of the very largest, that I 
possess data for deducing very accurately the 
