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The fruit, also, is largely consumed; while the wood is excessively durable in water. Two lofty trees, closely allied to each other the Lecythis ollaria and the Bertholletia excelsa produce enormous capsules full of nuts. The first, called the sapucaya, yields these curious capsules known as cuyas de maccao, or monkeys' drinking-cups.

The formation of a large woody fruit, often in the shape of an urn, from which the top spontaneously separates in the form of a lid, is one of the characteristics of the order Lecythidaceæ, which includes the Couronpita Guianensis, or "cannon ball tree"; the gigantic Lecythis ollaria, or "monkey-pot tree," whose great woody pericarps serve as drinking vessels; and the Lecythis Zabucajo, whose fruit is known in the market as sapucaia nuts, and is greatly superior to the closely allied Brazil nuts as regards flavor and ease of digestion.

Mermeroes in that year advanced from Kutais against Telephis, a strong fort in the possession of Rome, expelled the commandant, Martinus, by a stratagem, pressed forward against the combined Roman forces, which fled before him from Ollaria, and finally drove them to the coast and cooped them up in "the Island," a small tract near the mouth of the Phasis between that stream and the Doconus.