Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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We Had Some Trouble To Carry The Plants Which We Gathered At
Every Step.
The cannas, the heliconias with fine purple flowers,
the costuses, and other plants of the amomum family, here attain
Eight or ten feet in height, and their fresh tender verdure, their
silky gloss, and the extraordinary development of the parenchyma,
form a striking contrast with the brown colour of the arborescent
ferns, the foliage of which is delicately shaped. The Indians made
incisions with their large knives in the trunks of the trees, and
fixed our attention on those beautiful red and gold-coloured woods,
which will one day be sought for by our turners and cabinet-makers.
They showed us a plant of the compositae order, twenty feet high
(the Eupatorium laevigatum of Lamarck), the rose of Belveria,* (*
Brownea racemosa.) celebrated for the brilliancy of its purple
flowers, and the dragon's-blood of this country, which is a kind of
croton not yet described.* (* Plants of families entirely different
are called in the Spanish colonies of both continents, sangre de
draco; they are dracaenas, pterocarpi, and crotons. Father Caulin
Descrip. Corografica page 25, in speaking of resins found in the
forests of Cumana, makes a just distinction between the Draco de la
Sierra de Unare, which has pinnate leaves (Pterocarpus Draco), and
the Draco de la Sierra de Paria, with entire and hairy leaves. The
latter is the Croton sanguifluum of Cumanacoa, Caripe, and Cariaco.
) The red and astringent juice of this plant is employed to
strengthen the gums.
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