io6 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
unless they bore flowers, which spring in clusters 
from each leaf-axil. 
To return to my diary. Donna Cesaria treated 
us well — gave us arrowroot for breakfast, wild pig for 
dinner. She and all her people were very curious 
about the object of my collections. I explained 
it to them as well as I could, but the Senhora 
was not satisfied, and seemed to have convinced 
herself that they were intended as patterns for fabrics 
of cotton and silk, England being associated with 
woven goods in the minds of most South Ameri- 
cans. I showed her through my lens some beautiful 
lichens covering the surface of a leaf " O Deos ! " 
exclaimed she to her women who were standing 
around, em Inglaterra todo esto vai ser pintado 
em chita ! " (" in England all this will be painted 
on calico ! "). Her parting command to me was to 
send her one of the handsomest prints our manu- 
facturers should devise from the materials I had 
collected on her farm. 
A meridian altitude of the sun gave for the 
latitude of Caipurii i° 37' S. 
After crossing the Amazon on January 6, I 
landed on the island opposite the cliffs of Pari- 
catuba at daybreak to gather specimens of the 
Arrow- reed, Gynerium saccharoides, a magnificent 
grass, which grows in broad masses on the inun- 
dated shores and low islands of the Amazon, often 
accompanied by Salix Hitmboldtiana and two species 
of Cecropia. It is called in Portuguese Arvore de 
frecha; in Tupi, Ui'wa; both names signifying Arrow 
tree." It grows here to 15 or 20 feet high, and the 
stout, solid jointed stems, as thick as the wrist, are 
