86 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
lake, enables him to fatten a few young cattle. 
He keeps three or four apprentices and assistants, 
and seems comfortably off. In the morning he 
took us across the lake, and we remained until near 
night in a valley, traversed by a feeder of the lake, 
where the Tapuyas cut palm-leaves and wove their 
yapas, and I searched about for plants. On enter- 
ing the forest next the lake, I was startled at seeing 
what seemed to be two snakes lying across the 
path — they were leaf-stalks of an Aroideous plant 
(Dracontium), and were mottled with white, green, 
and black (or brown) exactly like the venomous 
Jararaca, whence their name, Jararaca-taya. I 
found a few growing plants which had a bulbous 
root, like that of Rammcuhts bulbosus, but flatter 
beneath. It is edible, like the roots of many other 
Aroids, but the acridity which pervades it has to be 
got rid of by maceration, or by throwing away the 
first water in which it is boiled. 
During the dry season the waters of the lake 
had receded so as to leave a broad beach, with a 
bushy border next the forest. On the beach grew 
several annual grasses ; an undescribed Sensitive- 
plant [Mimosa orthocarpd) ; and a pretty shrubby 
Leguminifer [Tepkrosia nitida), clad with silky 
down, like our Alpine Lady's-mantle, and bearing 
numerous purple vetch -like flowers; it is called 
Ajarf, and the leaves are used for stupefying fish, 
the same as those of Tephrosia toxicaria, Pers., a 
much less handsome species, which I afterwards 
saw cultivated for that purpose at Santarem and in 
Peru. The bushes consisted of various species of 
Croton, Biittneria, etc., but especially of Gustavia 
brasiliensis, Mart., which is known as Arvore de 
