I04 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
Amazon valley, are of sufficient interest to be given 
entire.] 
The rain did not clear away sufficiently to permit 
me to enter the woods until lo o'clock, and very 
few trees were to be seen in flower. On ground 
inundated by the Caipurii grew Parkia discolor, a 
handsome Leguminous tree, with leaves of the 
Mimosa type, i.e. twice pinnate, with very 
numerous close -set, scimitar- shaped leaflets; and 
with purple flowers, gathered into large pendulous 
heads exactly like tassels, having a knob of male 
flowers at the base, and an apical fringe of long 
thread-like styles. Cynometra Spruceana, growing 
along with the Parkia, and belonging to the same 
family, is notable for the fruit being not a legume, 
but a drupe, resembling a wheat-plum. 
On ground beyond the reach of floods I saw a 
few of the trees called Cedros or Cedars, and had 
one of them cut down. The timber of the Cedro 
is to the inhabitants of the Amazon what deal is 
to us at home, being more abundant and more easily 
worked than any other. It is also more accessible 
(and this is a great consideration), for, of the large 
trunks seen floating in the Amazon, by far the 
greater part are Gedros ; so that all that is neces- 
sary is to catch them as they float down in the 
time of flood, and tow them to wherever they may 
be needed. The trees grow chiefly by rivers, on 
alluvial barrancos, which, although too high to be 
inundated, are being continually undermined, and 
portions of them precipitated into the water. The 
northern tributaries of the Amazon do not produce 
much Cedro ; but the great rivers which flow from 
the southward through alluvial valleys, viz. the 
