VEGETATION OF BRAZIL. 
571 
flowers ; the fruit, which was not ripe during 
my stay, is said to be excellent when cooked, 
and its hai'd wood is of great use as timber in 
the construction of mills. Tlie Visgeira, al- 
ready mentioned, and the Timbahuba, are 
also two large trees of the neighbourhood ; the 
latter belongs to the 3Iimosa tribe, producing 
large round heads of yellowish flowers, and a 
broad legume curved round so as to resemble 
a horse shoe. A kind of small deer that much 
frequents the woods is very fond of this fruit, 
and is often watched for at night at the season 
when the fruit falls, being discovered by the 
rattling noise which the seeds make within 
the pod when trodden upon. The Jatoba, a 
species of Hymencea, is another large tree of 
common occurrence, as also the Angelim, a 
large and beautiful species of the genus An- 
dira; two Bignonias of considerable size are 
also common in the distant woods, one Avith 
purple, the other with yellowish flowers, but 
owing to the durability and hardness of their 
timber, which is much sought after by the 
natives for the construction of mills and carts, 
they are not allowed to attain any great size 
near the town of Crato. Besides these there 
are many other trees of smaller size, among 
which may be mentioned the Pao de Jangada 
{Apeiha Tibourhou), and one of frequent oc- 
currence, and conspicuous from its large 
prickly capsules ; on the coast its wood affords 
the material for the raft-boats before described, 
so commonly in use there. A species of 
Byrsonema, a Callisthene, a Gornphla, and a 
Vitex, are all remarkably beautiful when in 
blossom. "When planks are required in most, 
indeed I may say in all parts of the Sertao, 
there is a sad waste of timber, for to obtain 
one an entire tree is chopped on both sides 
until it is reduced to the exact size required. 
A number of wild fruits are found in the 
Catingas ; among these are the mangaba al- 
ready spoken of as very common about Per- 
nambuco, the Guava, the Araga, and also, but 
only on the top of the Sex^ra, a nearly allied 
species called Marangaba ; it is the Psidium 
pigmeum of Arrudo, a shrub from one to two 
feet high, the fruit of which is about the size 
of a gooseberry, and is greatly sought after 
on account of its delicious flavour, which re- 
sembles that of the strawberry. The woods 
in the immediate neighbourhood of the town 
produce a fruit called Pusa, which belongs 
to a new species of Moiiriria {3L Pusa, 
Gardn.), it is about the size of a small plum, 
of a black colour, and resembles very much 
in taste the fruit of the Jaboticaba {Eugenia 
caidijiora, DC.) of the south of Brazil; when 
in season it is larought to the town and car- 
ried through the streets for sale, by the 
Indians. The Cashew is also very common, 
but the eatable portion of the fruit is smaller 
and not so well tasted as that which grows 
along the coast."— Pp. 191—193. 
" The country between Parnagua and Saco 
do Tanque is comparatively level ; and al- 
though the general vegetation has very much 
the same character as that of other Catinga 
districts, many of the shrubs and trees were 
quite new to me. At this season very few 
were in flower ; of these the most remarkable 
was a very large tree to which the name of 
Sicupira is given by the inhabitants, and 
which I afterwards found extending far into 
the province of Goyaz ; it belongs to the 
natural order LegummoscB, and has only very 
recently been described by IMr. Bentham, 
under the name of Coynmilohium pol^galce- 
fioinim : it is easily recognised at a great 
distance by its numerous large panicles of 
lilac flow^ers. An essential oil which is con- 
tained in the fruit, is much used by the 
inhabitants to alleviate the pain of the tooth- 
ache. A very large silk cotton-tree (Bombax), 
entirely destitute of leaves, was also common, 
but on one of them I found a few blossoms, 
which were of enormous size, measuring when 
fully expanded about a foot and a half across; 
the petals were of a dark browai colour with- 
out, but white within. Near a Fazenda called 
Eiacho dArea, where we stopped a day, grow 
a number of large palm trees, on the stems 
of which I found a large fleshy-stemmed 
orchideous plant, a species of Cyrtopodium, 
which produced flowering stems about four 
feet high, terminating in a large panicle of 
flowers, w'ith bro^vn blotches on an orange 
ground, and smelling sweetly like wallflower. 
In marshy bushy places on this journey I 
saw many plants of the Vanilla pkmijoUa, 
seldom bearing flowers, and more rarely pro- 
ducing fruit. It has now been satisfactorily 
determined, that this is the species from which 
the true Vanilla of commerce is procured. 
In Mexico it is extensively cultivated for the 
sake of its fruit, which it yields abundantly ; 
while th.e plants which have been introduced 
into the East Indies, and the hothouses of 
Europe, though they have frequently pro- 
duced flowers, have very seldom perfected 
their fruit. Dr. Morren of Liege was the 
first to study attentively the natural history 
of this plant, and to prove experimentally that 
the fruit of the Yanilla may be as freely pro- 
duced in our hothouses as it is in Mexico. 
He has discovered that from some peculiarities 
in the reproductive organs of this plant, 
artificial fecundation is required. In the year 
1836, a plant in one of the hothouses in the 
botanic garden at Liege produced fifty-four 
flowers, which having been artificially fecun- 
dated, exhibited the same num.ber of pods, 
quite equal to those imported from Mexico ; 
and in 1837, a fresh crop of about a hundred 
