CH. V VEGETATION AT SANTAREM 153 
Mumbaca palm, which grows from 8 to 12 feet 
high, and has a slender prickly stem, beautifully 
regular pinnate leaves, and small red or orange- 
coloured fruits. It is rare in the virgin forests, 
but more abundant in second-growth thickets near 
Para and Santarem. The photographic print (on 
page 155) shows a group of these palms in the 
undergrowth of the forest. It was taken near Para, 
but is equally characteristic of the places where 
Spruce met with it, as described in his paper on 
" Equatorial American Palms," in the Journal of 
the Linnean Society (vol. xi. 1869). — Ed.] 
The vegetation of the shores and islands inun- 
dated by the turbid waters of the Amazon was 
almost entirely diverse from that of the blue 
Tapajoz. Enormous figs, often with tortuous 
deformed trunks, and sometimes sending down 
props like the Banyan ; Silk-cotton trees ; India- 
rubber trees [Sipkonia Spruceana, Benth.) ; and the 
Itaiiba-rana (Ormosia excelsa, sp. n.), a fine tall 
timber tree, with hard discoloured wood, and 
panicles of lilac flowers, were conspicuous among 
the trees of the gapo. But more abundant than 
any of these, and (as I afterwards found) extending 
along the banks of the Amazon to the very roots of 
the Andes, was the Pao Mulatto or Mulatto tree, 
so called from the colour of its bark, which is con- 
tinually peeling off and being renewed. It grows 
60 to 100 feet high, and branches in such 
narrow forks that its top is usually in the form of a 
reversed cone ; which peculiarity, along with its 
shining reddish-brown skin, and (in the season) its 
corymbs of flowers resembling those of the haw- 
thorn in colour and scent, render it everywhere a 
