THE BRAZIL NUT.


[Illustration: THE BRAZIL NUT.]

Every one is acquainted with the hard-shelled, triangular fruit called the
Brazil nut, but there are, perhaps, but few who know anything about the
tree that produces it, or its mode of growth. The Brazil nut tree belongs
to a genus of Lecythidaceæ of which there is only one species,
_Bertholletia excelsa_. This tree is a native of Guiana, Venezuela, and
Brazil. It forms large forests on the banks of the Amazons and Rio Negro,
and likewise about Esmeraldas, on the Orinoco, where the natives call it
_juvia_. The natives of Brazil call the fruit _capucaya_, while to the
Portuguese it is known as _castaña de marañon_.

The tree is one of the most majestic in the South American forests,
attaining a height of 100 or 150 feet. Its trunk is straight and
cylindrical, and measures about 3 or 4 feet in diameter. The bark is
grayish and very even. At a distance, the tree somewhat resembles a
chestnut. Its branches are alternate, open, very long, and droop toward the
earth. The leaves are alternate, oblong, short petioled, nearly coriaceous,
about 2 feet long by 6 inches wide, entire or undivided, and of a bright
green color. The flowers have a two-parted, deciduous calyx, six unequal
cream-colored petals, and numerous stamens united into a broad, hood-shaped
mass, those at the base being fertile, and the upper ones sterile.