The Pericarp Of The Bertholletia Has Traces Of Four Cells, And I Have Sometimes Found Even Five.

The seeds have two very distinct coverings, and this circumstance renders the structure of the fruit more complicated than in the lecythis, the pekea or caryocar, and the saouvari.

The first tegument is osseous or ligneous, triangular, tuberculated on its exterior surface, and of the colour of cinnamon. Four or five, and sometimes eight of these triangular nuts, are attached to a central partition. As they are loosened in time, they move freely in the large spherical pericarp. The capuchin monkeys (Simia chiropotes) are singularly fond of the Brazil nuts; and the noise made by the seeds, when the fruit is shaken as it falls from the tree, excites the appetites of these animals in the highest degree. I have most frequently found only from fifteen to twenty-two nuts in each fruit. The second tegument of the almonds is membranaceous, and of a brown-yellow. Their taste is extremely agreeable when they are fresh; but the oil, with which they abound, and which is so useful in the arts, becomes easily rancid. Although at the Upper Orinoco we often ate considerable quantities of these almonds for want of other food, we never felt any bad effects from so doing. The spherical pericarp of the bertholletia, perforated at the summit, is not dehiscent; the upper and swelled part of the columella forms (according to M. Kunth) a sort of inner cover, as in the fruit of the lecythis, but it seldom opens of itself.

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