THE EQUATORIAL FORESTS 45 
shaped capsules of our pimpernels. Fruits of many 
Malpighiads, Polygones, etc., have gaudy red wings 
to them, so that at a distance they look more like 
flowers. But the most extraordinary instance of 
fruits simulating flowers is afforded by the capsules 
of some Silk-cotton trees, which burst open with 
valves in a stellate manner, disclosing the beautiful 
cotton puffed up into a globose mass, so that at a 
distance they look like large roses or dahlias. Many 
of the old missionaries, in fact, described this kind 
of cotton as the produce of a flower ; and yet we 
have seen above that the real flowers of this tribe 
are often sufficiently large and conspicuous. Most 
Apocynes and Asclepiads have long spindle-shaped 
pods, bursting along one side and giving exit to 
the corrugated seeds, each tipped with a tuft of 
long silky down. . . . Myrtles and Melastomes are 
sometimes conspicuous objects from their fruits — 
yellow, red, or black berries varying in the different 
species from the size of currants to that of small 
apples. 
Palms and other Endogens 
Nearly all that precedes refers exclusively to 
exogenous plants, but any description of Amazonian 
vegetation would be incomplete which should not 
take into account the palms, whose immense fronds 
are often as large as some of the smaller trees. 
The pinnate fronds of the Jupati i^Raphia tcedigera) 
and Inaja [Maximiliana regia) reach sometimes 40 
feet in length ; and those of the Miriti (Mauritiae sp.), 
etc., are, if shorter, scarcely less bulky, as we have 
