Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/230

 224 BRAZIL some even necessary to their existence. From the graceful cocos nueifera, with its giant pinnate leaves often 20 ft. long, the Maximiliana regia, jara-assu, manicaria saccifera, yriartea exho- riza, Leopoldina pulehra, and some others, the Indian obtains food, drink, raiment, dwelling, hammocks, cordage, cooking utensils (the woody spathes of some palms standing the fire when they are filled with water), weapons, tools, fish- ing tackle, harpoons, implements for the chase, musical instruments, and medicines. The car- nohuba palm gives wax which, mixed with tallow, makes excellent candles, and a sort of farinaceous pith much used when other food is scarce. The cocos, of which the cocoanut palm is the type, and of which about a dozen species are here known, the assai, the bacaba, a single bunch of whose fruit weighs from 30 to 40 Ibs., the peach palm (pupunha), and scores of others, all furnish delicious and wholesome fruits, and some of them refreshing beverages. The cocos yield wax, oil, sugar, starch, and materials for cloth and cordage; the leaves and shells give thatch for huts, ma- terials for hats, hammocks, mats, baskets, and other articles ; and the roots, sap, flowers, and milk afford to the Indian medicinal remedies for many of his peculiar maladies. The wood of all the palms is very good for building. One of the most beautiful members of the pahn family is the miriti, with its pendent clusters of reddish fruit, and enormous spreading, fan- like leaves, cut into ribbons, one of which is a load for a man. The plume-like leaves of the jupati are often 50 ft. long, and those of the bussu 30 ft. All the well known tropical fruits can generally be had in any part of the country ; but the interior abounds in produc- tions utterly unknown in the coast districts. Some of these fruits have been cultivated by the natives, such as the jabuti-puhe and cama (two species), the former resembling the apple, the latter the pear in form and size, and both containing a pulp of a delicious flavor. The fruit of the artocarpus Braziliensis (Gom.), or Brazilian breadfruit, sometimes a foot and a half in the largest diameter, has immense seeds which are extensively used as food. Others grow wild, as the pama, an oblong, cherry-colored stone fruit, growing at a height of 100 feet from the ground; and the puruma-i, which tastes like wild grapes. The fatty, bitter pulp of the umari and the wish! is eaten mixed with farina, and is very nourishing ; and mingau (custard) of bananas, flavored with the mallet- shaped wiko an oblong, crimson fruit, grow- ing apparently crosswise on its stem is a fa- vorite dish on the Solimoens. All vegetation is much more luxuriant in the basin of the So- limoens than in that of the Lower Amazon ; trees which near Belem bloom but once a year have flowers or fruit, and sometimes both, throughout the four seasons at Ega. The species of social plants are comparatively few in Brazil; those most noteworthy in the At- lantic regions are the mangroves, conocarpus and avicennia, in addition to which and the pteris caudata are some species of rhexia, cecropia, and bignonia, together with the uba, jaquarassfi, some grasses, a bamboo, and the dwarf palm of the coast, guriri. The for- ests of the central provinces are made up of melastoma, conspicuous from their large purple blossoms; bombacece, with their pecu- liar foliage and large cotton fruits ; candelabra trees, with a fruit resembling that of the bread tree (cultivated in Brazil), but slighter and more cylindrical ; euphorbias of extraordinary size ; the genera ilex, laurus, myrtus, eugenia, jatropha, visinia, ficut, as also the bignonia, rhexia, lecythis, and hundreds of other for the most part unknown species ; and near the plantations and dwellings exotic tropical trees are everywhere cultivated. Luxuriant plant growth greets the eye in all directions; no- where is a spot to be seen without plants. Numberless species of passiftora, caladium, dracontium, piper, begonia, and epidendrum, with multitudinous ferns, lichens, and mosses, bloom on every tree stem ; and the mass of foliage is everywhere interlaced by parasitic vines. Countless tough, woody lianes, varying from thread-like tenuity to the thickness of a man's thigh, cling to and twine around the tree trunks, climbing to the very topmost branch, there to blossom and bear fruit above the reach of vision. The caoutchouc tree oc- curs chiefly between Belem and the Xingu, and on the Solimoens and Rio Negro ; and the smilax eyphilitica, valuable for the sarsaparilla extracted from its roots, abounds in the whole Amazonian forest region, from Venezuela to Bolivia. Brazilian nutmegs, Tonka beans, and Maranhao cloves are all common to the Rio Negro, in the basin of which are numberless trees rich in various kinds of oils and resins. Among the forest trees of the Amazon, the leguminoiKK are by far the most abundant in species, and also the most remarkable, from their curious bean-like fruits, commonly of immense size or length. Many of the ingds and allied genera have pods a yard long and very slender, while in others the pods are three or four inches wide and quite short. There are numerous species of vanilla ; the Leopol- dina palm, the fibres of whose petioles give the piassaba so extensively employed in textile fabrics, occurs in large numbers ; as do also several species of bombax, producing silk cot- ton. The flowers of the forest trees in the densely wooded regions are comparatively small and inconspicuous ; in the open country, or campos, the flower-bearing trees and bushes are more abundant, as indicated by the larger number of floral insects attracted thither ; but in the more cultivated districts in the central and southern provinces, the prodigious variety and beauty of the flowers never fail to com- mand attention and admiration. In addition to the tropical fruits alluded to above, men- tion should be made of the bananas, yams, figs, lemons, oranges, &c., all of which grow