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The cipo passed from one tree to another without breaking its continuity, sometimes twisting round the trunks, sometimes garlanding the branches, here jumping form a dragon-tree to a rosewood, then from a gigantic chestnut, the "Bertholletia excelsa," to some of the wine palms, "baccabas," whose branches have been appropriately compared by Agassiz to long sticks of coral flecked with green.
It was muddy and intolerably filthy, and intersected by some small streams, whose beds formed the roads, and, at the same time, the common sewers of the natives. In gardens the hollyhock is seen: it is said to be introduced through Tibet from China; also Pinus excelsa from Bhotan, peaches, walnuts, and weeping willows.
To Humboldt himself, I believe, is due the re-discovery of the tree itself and its enormous fruit; and the name of Bertholletia excelsa was given by him. The tree, he says, 'is not more than two or three feet in diameter, but attains one hundred or one hundred and twenty feet in height.
Abies Webbiana begins here, and continues onwards, but, as on Tonglo, Mainom, and the other outer wetter Sikkim ranges, there is neither larch, Pinus excelsa, Abies Smithiana, or A. Brunoniana.
From Choombi to Lhassa is fifteen days' long journeys for a man mounted on a stout mule; all the rice passing through Phari is monopolised there for the Chinese troops at Lhassa. The grazing for yaks and small cattle is excellent in Choombi, and the Pinus excelsa is said to grow abundantly there, though unknown in Sikkim, but I have not heard of any other peculiarity in its productions.
Very few however, know anything of the tree which bears them, or how they are attached to the branches from which they are suspended. As it is a matter of such general interest to both old and young, I shall take the liberty of devoting a few moments to a brief description of this gigantic tree, which the botanist has named 'The Bertholletia Excelsa.
Æthiopsar fuscus has all the habits of the common myna. Like the latter, it struts about sedately in company with cattle in order to snatch up the grasshoppers disturbed by the moving quadrupeds. It feeds largely on the insects that infest the capsules of Lobelia excelsa, and is often to be seen clinging, like a tit, to the stem in order to secure the insects.
The sound-board itself is made of most carefully chosen pine; in Europe of the Abies excelsa, the spruce fir, which, when well grown, and of light, even grain, is the best of all woods for resonance.
"We will see what is said of its color," replied her governess, "and here it is: 'Distinguished by its yellowish bark, of a soft silken texture and silvery or pearly lustre, It is a large tree, and has been named excelsa 'lofty' because of its height. The slender, flowing branches are very graceful, and the tree is often as symmetrical as a fine elm, but droops less.
Every one is acquainted with the hard-shelled, triangular fruit called the Brazil nut, but there are, perhaps, but few who know anything about the tree that produces it, or its mode of growth. The Brazil nut tree belongs to a genus of Lecythidaceæ of which there is only one species, Bertholletia excelsa. This tree is a native of Guiana, Venezuela, and Brazil.
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