VEGETATION AT SANTAREM 163 
like our ash in its leaves, but not attaining so great 
a size, and it bears an oblong yellow subacid drupe 
about the size of a wheat-plum.-^ The tree is fre- 
quent throughout tropical South America, and is 
known in Venezuela by the name of Jovo or Hobo, 
and in Peru by that of Ciruelo amarillo or Yellow 
Plum ; but I do not know that I have anywhere 
seen it truly wild. It is extremely tenacious of life, 
so that a stake cut from it nearly always takes root 
in the ground, and (if allowed) grows to be a tree ; 
on which account it is much used for fencings of 
corrals on the Orinoco, and of cane -fields, etc., 
about Guayaquil. At Santarem, rows of stakes of 
Tapiriba, which had been stuck by the roadside 
leading out of the town to the cemetery on the 
campo, about a year before my arrival, were already 
acquiring leafy heads, and promised to form soon a 
shady avenue. 
Apiranga [Motcriria Apiranga, sp. n.). A small 
tree about the size of the plum, belonging to a 
curious genus intermediate between Myrtles and 
Melastomes. It bears a pleasant-tasted red berry 
with three stony seeds. 
A rag a [Psidium ovatifolumi, Berg.). This is a 
Myrtle — a sort of small Guayaba, rather more acid 
than the common kind. The acid fruits of several 
Eugenias are also called Araca. 
Tapii'ra-guayaba (Belluci^ sp.). A Melastome, 
with a slender — often unbranched — trunk, reaching 
50 feet high, and bearing a few large leaves at the 
top and a profusion of white rose-like flowers on 
^ [This is an old Yorkshire plum, so named from being ripe at harvest- 
lime, when pies were made of it. It was not of very good quality and is now 
superseded by the Victoria plum. — Ed.] 
