Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Triangular Seeds Of The Juvia Are Sold In Portugal
Under The Vague Appellation Of Chesnuts (Castanas) Of The Amazon, And
In England Under The Name Of Brazil-Nuts; And It Was Long Believed
That, Like The Fruit Of The Pekea, They Grew On Separate Stalks.
They
have furnished an article of trade for a century past to the
inhabitants of Grand Para, by whom they are sent either directly to
Europe, or to Cayenne, where they are called touka.
The celebrated
botanist, Correa de Serra, told us that this tree abounds in the
forests in the neighbourhood of Macapa, at the mouth of the Amazon;
that it there bears the name of capucaya, and that the inhabitants
gather the almonds, like those of the lecythis, to express the oil. A
cargo of almonds of the juvia, bought into Havre, captured by a
privateer, in 1807, was employed for the same purpose.
The tree that yields the Brazil-nuts is generally not more than two or
three feet in diameter, but attains one hundred or one hundred and
twenty feet in height. It does not resemble the mammee-tree, the
star-apple, and several other trees of the tropics, the branches of
which (as in the laurel-trees of the temperate zone) rise almost
straight towards the sky. The branches of the bertholletia are open,
very long, almost entirely bare towards the base, and loaded at their
summits with tufts of very close foliage. This disposition of the
semicoriaceous leaves, which are a little silvery on their under part,
and more than two feet long, makes the branches bend down toward the
ground, like the fronds of the palm-tree.
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