The urucuỹ, which is half shrub half tree, resembles a hazle in the
whiteness of its wood, and the blackness of its bark. Its leaves are
rather large, and heart-shaped. The flowers, which are composed of five
white petals, tinged with red, are about the size of a common rose, but
have no scent whatever. For fruit it bears pods, which are green at
first, and afterwards red, each containing about forty grains the size
of peas, but plain on both sides, and with a white pulp, like the seeds
of apples. The surface of them is of a deep bright red, and immediately
dyes the hands of all who touch it with that colour. The pods, when
ripe, burst open of themselves. These grains, either dry or fresh,
supply the place of vermillion: when pounded, and sprinkled with water,
they are used by the savages, sometimes for painting their bodies,
sometimes for dying or staining cloth, vessels, or other things. This
scarlet colour, when a thing is once tinctured with it, adheres
pertinaciously, if the grains of the urucuỹ, steeped in water, be mixed
with alum or urine. The same grains are thrown into boiling water, and
of the colour that settles at the bottom cakes are made, which the women
in Europe paint their faces with, and painters and dyers use for other
purposes. They are used also both as food and medicine, variously
prepared and mixed. Of the bark some weave cables, cords, and ropes,
stronger than hempen ones.