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Updated: May 26, 2025
"From the so-called cow-tree," said Bess soberly, "which is found quite commonly in the jungles of Brazil. You score the bark and the wood immediately beneath it with an axe, or machette, insert a sliver of clean wood, and the milky sap trickles forth into your cup " "How ridiculous!" interposed Nan, while the baggage-man burst into appreciative laughter.
Among the most remarkable were the white-stemmed cecropia; the cow-tree, of still loftier growth; and the indiarubber tree, with its smooth grey bark, tall erect trunk, and thick glossy leaves: while intermixed with them appeared the assai palm, with its slender stem, its graceful head, and its delicate green plumes; and the mirite, one of the most beautiful of the palm tribe, having abundant clusters of glossy fruit, and enormous spreading, fanlike leaves, cut into ribbons.
The produce of the bread-fruit tree can no more be considered as bread than plantains before the state of maturity, or the tuberous and amylaceous roots of the cassava, the dioscorea, the Convolvulus batatas, and the potato. The milk of the cow-tree contains, on the contrary, a caseous matter, like the milk of mammiferous animals.
They had no doubt been carried, as a very rare fruit, to the Upper Maranon, and thence, by the Cordilleras, to Quito and Peru. The Novus Orbis of Laet, in which I found the first account of the cow-tree, furnishes also a description and a figure singularly exact of the fruit of the bertholletia.
It is called the cow-tree; and we were assured that the negroes of the farm, who drink plentifully of this vegetable milk, consider it a wholesome aliment. All the milky juices of plants being acrid, bitter, and more or less poisonous, this account appeared to us very extraordinary; but we found by experience during our stay at Barbula, that the virtues of this tree had not been exaggerated.
We shall see the giant "ceiba" tree, and the "zamang," and the "caoba," twined by huge parasites almost as thick as their own trunks, and looking as though they embraced but to crush them; the "juvia," with its globe-shaped fruits as large as the human head; the "cow-tree," with its abundant fountains of rich milk; the "seringa," with its valuable gum the caoutchouc of commerce; the "cinchona," with its fever-killing bark; the curious "volador," with its winged seeds; the wild indigo, and the arnatto.
From the curious candella-tree, called by the Spaniards arbol de la manteca, by the Indians cuajo, he obtains tallow for candles and excellent oil for lamps, and a beverage which is made from its fruit. The cow-tree supplies a milk in appearance like that of the animal from which it takes its name, but thicker.
On comparing the milky juices of the papaw, the cow-tree, and the hevea, there appears a striking analogy between the juices which abound in caseous matter, and those in which caoutchouc prevails.
Sometimes it is morphine or the narcotic principle, that characterises the vegetable milk, as in some papaverous plants; sometimes it is caoutchouc, as in the hevea and the castilloa; sometimes albumen and caseum, as in the cow-tree. The hydrocyanic acid is peculiar to the group of rosaceo-amygdalaceae.
In the meanwhile, by dint of daily trips to the ship, provisions were plentiful enough, beside the raccoons, monkeys, and other small animals, which Yeo and the veterans of Hawkins's crew knew how to catch, and the fruit and vegetables; above all, the delicious mountain cabbage of the Areca palm, and the fresh milk of the cow-tree, which they brought in daily, paying well thereby for the hospitality they received.
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