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walnut, the Moschair, and with lesser quality, the Nogueira de Bancoul, the Bilimbi (1), the Caramboleira (2), the red leaf banana of the Pacific Ocean and the true breadfruit tree. The Caneleira, was moved from here to a particular plantation, near Olaria, in the vicinity of the river, where we saw a few thousand seedlings prospering.

Averrhoa bilimbi, the cucumber tree

Averrhoa carambola, the star fruit

Caneleira, the cinnamon plant

On the cultivation of the most important of these plants, I will add something in the notes (note V). One of the oldest, also held in the city's neighborhoods, under the Government of D. Francisco Xavier Furtado de Mendonca, brother of Marques de Pombal, was destined in particular to the cultivation in several plantations in the interior of the country, in order to be spread of from here to the nearby regions. The director, Dr. Lacerda, showed us among others, the tree called the Maranhao carnation. Here they were of opinion that this aromatic bark, which is between the cinnamon and the carnation of India, was of the species of Myrtaceae (Myrtus caryophyllata, Jacq.); It, however, as well as the cinnamon comes from a tree not yet described from the family of Lauraceas (3).

Myristica fragrans, Maranhao carnation, the nutmeg

In our botanical excursions around Rocinha we find, not uncommon, the wonderful tree that of rubber or Cauchu. and called by Brazilians “rubber tree”, because at first they formed the milky sap into the shape of a pear, which now appears on the market as an eraser. The rubber tree rises slender, its gray-yellowish trunk, down along the ground, and its cortex, further up the bark and sometimes brownish, in general, when wounded drains latex, which hardens in the air and then hangs on long light gray ropes, the thickness of a goose feather , and often many branches in length. When these filaments coat thin twigs, they form elastic strings, which, from the beginning, indicated the use of the material for any job.

Etching 38 Rubber trees

Certainly, before using rubber as a means of cleaning paper, the Indians made syringe nozzles, tips for smoking and, at the beginning of the last century, a Portuguese surgeon used it for catheterization purposes.
Currently, isolated farmers grow rubber trees and, above all, the poorest people of every background, called rubber tappers.

(i) Bilimbi, I:. industrial term for the beautiful tree so-called (the Averrhoa Bilimbi, Lin.) Came from the land of the Brahmins to Brazil, brought by our German colonizers. And an Oxalidacea that of the beautiful pink flowers, in bundles or curls, and citrus fruits, used for lemonade. (Nola da Rev., Inst. Hist. and Geogr. Bras. ) .
(2) The Star fruit (Averrhoa carambola, Lenn.) and also a Terebintacea, like the Bilimbi, had the same industrial term. According to Almeida Pinto, the first Brazilian province that received it was Pernambuco, where it was acclimated in the extinct Botanical Garden of Olinda. -Rev. Note, Inst. Hist. and Geogr. Bras. )
(3) Persea caryophyllata, Mart.

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