Everything the Spaniards sowed or planted in Uraba grew marvellously
well. Is this not worthy, Most Holy Father, of the highest admiration?
Every kind of seed, graftings, sugar-canes, and slips of trees and
plants, without speaking of the chickens and quadrupeds I have
mentioned, were brought from Europe. O admirable fertility! The
cucumbers and other similar vegetables sown were ready for picking in
less than twenty days. Cabbages, beets, lettuces, salads, and other
garden stuff were ripe within ten days; pumpkins and melons were
picked twenty-eight days after the seeds were sown. The slips and
sprouts, and such of our trees as we plant out in nurseries or
trenches, as well as the graftings of trees similar to those in Spain,
bore fruit as quickly as in Hispaniola.

The inhabitants of Darien have different kinds of fruit trees, whose
varied taste and good quality answer to their needs. I would like to
describe the more remarkable ones.

The _guaiana_ produces a lemon-like fruit similar to those commonly
called limes. Their flavour is sharp, but they are pleasant to the
taste. Nut-bearing pines are common, as are likewise various sorts of
palms bearing dates larger than ours but too sour to be eaten. The
cabbage palm grows everywhere, spontaneously, and is used both for
food and making brooms. There is a tree called _guaranana_, larger
than orange trees, and bearing a fruit about the size of a lemon; and
there is another closely resembling the chestnut. The fruit of
the latter is larger than a fig, and is pleasant to the taste and
wholesome. The _mamei_ bears a fruit about the size of an orange which
is as succulent as the best melon. The _guaranala_ bears a smaller
fruit than the foregoing, but of an aromatic scent and exquisite
taste. The _hovos_ bears a fruit resembling in its form and flavour