THE FAMOUS COW-TREE.

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out of the earth; growing gradually upwards as the increasing height of the tree required augmented support. This wonderful provision has been designed by the Creator to sustain the massive crown and trunk in these crowded forests, where the lateral growth of the roots would be rendered difficult by the number of competitors."

Among other remarkable inhabitants of the Brazilian wilderness, we may name the lofty Moira-tingu,* the

The

Samaüma, and the Massaranduba, or cow-tree. Eriodendron Samaüma, or silk-cotton tree, holds in the New World the same position as the Bombyx in the Old. It rises to an enormous stature without branches, and then spreads out a glorious dome of foliage. The bark is light in colour; and the capsule-pod contains a large quantity

* Order Leguminosa, tribe Mimosa. (240)

Order Urticacea.
6

t Order Sterculiaceæ.

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THE PASHIUBA PALM.

of down, of a brown tint, and exquisite silky softness. The Massaranduba is also called the Palo de Vacca, the Arbor de Lacte, the Galactodendron utile, or the Cow-tree. Its bark furnishes an abundant supply of milk as pleasant to drink as that of the cow. If exposed to the air it thickens into a glue, which is excessively tenacious, and often employed to cement broken crockery. The tree has a wild strange appearance, owing to its deeply-scored, reddish, and rugged bark, a decoction of which is used as a red dye for cloth.

Did our readers ever hear of the Pashiúba, or bulgingstemmed palm?* It is not one of the tallest kinds, for its height, when full grown, seldom exceeds 40 feet; the leaves are somewhat less drooping, while the leaflets are broader than in other species; but if less beautiful, it is perhaps far more remarkable. Its roots grow above ground, radiating from the trunk at an elevation of ten or twelve feet, so that the tree seems to be supported on stilts; and when it is old, a person can stand upright amongst the roots with the perpendicular stem soaring far above his head. About midway this stem bulges out in a circular swelling, to which the tree owes its distinctive name. The root closely resembles straight rods, but they are studded with stout thorns, whilst the trunk of the Pashiúba is perfectly smooth.

Another picture of a tropical wilderness, as it encroaches on the very suburbs of the Brazilian towns, is given by an eminent living naturalist. He tells us that while walking along the shady pathways, and admiring each successive view, he has often longed for suitable language to

*Iriartea Ventricosa.

A TROPICAL WILDERNESS.

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express his ideas. Epithet after epithet has seemed too weak, when he has sought to convey to those who have not visited the intertropical regions the sensation of delight which his own mind has experienced. The land he describes as one great, wild, untidy, luxuriant hothouse, made by Nature herself, but taken possession of by man, who has studded it with gay houses and formal gardens. How keen would be the desire in any lover of nature to behold, if it were possible, the scenery of another planet! Yet to any person in Europe it may truly be said that, at the distance of two or three thousand miles from his native soil, the glories of another world are opened up to him. Yet so manifold are the beauties, and so various the characteristics of the scene, it becomes impossible to fix any definite impression of them upon the mind. The form of the orange-tree, the cocoa-nut, the palm, the mango, the fern-tree, the banana, may remain clear and separate; but the thousand charms and graces which unite them into one perfect scene must fade away; or, at most, will leave, like a tale told in childhood, a picture full of indistinct but most beautiful figures.

So much for the forest in its tropical development. But before I quit this general consideration of the Tree, I would fain turn once more to the woodland scenery of the North.

A pine forest is one of the grandest scenes imaginable, and from its silence, its solitude, its dim mysterious vistas and shadowy avenues, it is also one of the most impressive. You seem to be tracing the airy colonnades of a palace of the giants, or of some deserted city of the past, which is no longer tenanted by the living, and which, if

the spirits of the dead ever frequent it, 'tis without a sound or murmur. Through those long-drawn aisles come occasional flashes of sunlight, kindling them into a wonderful

and almost incredible radiance-touching each drooping leaf with a Midas-touch, and converting its wrinkled surface into burnished gold-brightening the gray moss and lichen which clothe each hoary trunk—and revealing the wild-flowers that nestle softly in the dells and hollows of the greensward. Just as our work-day life is thrown into strong contrast by the occasional gleams of beauty and visions of future happiness which haunt the dreamy brain, so is the wonted twilight of the forest made more evident by these passing bursts of the glory of the sun. And this alternation of sunshine and shadow adds in an inconceivable degree to the sublime influence of the "murmurous pines."

"Beautiful," says an eloquent writer,*"beautiful is the pine forest in all seasons: in the sweet fresh spring, when the gnarled boughs are penetrated and mollified by the genial wind and cheerful sunshine, and, glowing with young life, burgeon in tassels and fringes of the brightest green and cones of the mellowest purple. Beautiful, too, in the happy summer-time, when the deer finds a cool retreat in its furthest recesses, and the radiance of a golden heaven falls in tremulous gleams on the still woodland pool, or checkers with rare designs the yielding mosses and clustering ferns. Beautiful, too, in melancholy autumn, when its eternal freshness is so delightful a relief after the eye has grown sad and aching with contemplation of the change that the waning months have wrought in the aspects of external nature. And beautiful, above all, in the mid-winter, when a glorious burden of snow rests on the spreading branches, and every leaf, and stem, and

* Rev. Hugh Macmillan.