52 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
Casiquiari, and fashioned at San Carlos into the 
keel of a schooner. The Brazilian frigate Imperatriz, 
built at Para in 1823, chiefly of Maceranduba, was 
in 1849 still perfectly sound and seaworthy. 
At Para I saw the mode of collecting the native 
white pitch (Breo branco), which is used there, 
and throughout the Amazon, for caulking seams. 
It is yielded by various species of the genus Icica 
— trees which closely resemble the sumach — and 
chiefly by one with a tall, clean-growing trunk 
which was in great request for masts. When the 
bark of an Icica is wounded, a white milk flows slowly 
out and coagulates just below the wound, which 
does not heal up quickly as in most milky trees, 
but continues to distil for several months or even 
years. The Indians, therefore, when they come 
across these trees in the forest, gash them with 
their tercados, in order that, when they revisit 
them some time afterwards, they may find a good 
lump of resin accumulated. Breo branco is brought 
to market, either in its crude state, packed in 
baskets lined with leaves, when it is called breo 
virgem, or in thick cylinders, having been run into 
moulds of that shape. It is whitish, friable, and 
exhales a strong agreeable odour. When melted 
and spread out over a plank or seam, it dries 
rapidly, and unless a good quantity of grease has 
been mixed with it in the melting it breaks away ; 
but if that precaution has been taken it adheres 
very tenaciously, and keeps out the water much 
better than the black pitch or Oanani, which is 
obtained from a Clusiaceous tree. 
Icica is the native name for pitch in general ; 
and the white pitch is called by the Indians Ici'cari- 
