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The mode of growth of this tree is curious: the
branches are emitted at nearly right angles with the stem, the
branchlets in minor whorls around these, and so forth, the leaves
growing at their extremities, so that the total appearance is
that of a huge candelabrum. Cecropiae of different species are
characteristic of Brazilian forest scenery; the kind of which I
am speaking grows in great numbers everywhere on the banks of the
Amazons where the land is low. In the same places the curious
Monguba tree (Bombax ceiba) is also plentiful; the dark green
bark of its huge tapering trunk, scored with grey, forming a
conspicuous object. The principal palm tree on the lowlands is
the Jauari (Astrvocaryum Jauari), whose stem, surrounded by
whorls of spines, shoots up to a great height. On the borders of
the island were large tracts of arrow-grass (Gynerium
saccharoides), which bears elegant plumes of flowers, like those
of the reed, and grows to a height of twenty feet, the leaves
arranged in a fan-shaped figure near the middle of the stem.


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