A dense vegetation, though somewhat varied in character, rises like a
lofty wall of verdure along the banks of the mighty stream, from the
base of the Andes to its mouth in the Atlantic. There, where the
influence of the sea-breeze is felt, the ever-present mangrove of the
tropics forms a thick belt round the shores of its numberless islands.
Higher up, various palms of many graceful forms appear, interspersed
with numberless other trees, some bearing huge pods a yard long, others
vast nuts and other curious fruits,--the banks below fringed either with
giant grasses and broad-leaved bananas, or here and there with the large
wide heart-shaped leaves of the aninga growing on the summit of tall
stems, or in other places with the murici of a lower growth close to the
water's edge. Among the most remarkable is the white-stemmed cecropia,
the lofty massaranduba, or cow-tree, often rising to the height of one
hundred and fifty feet; the seringa, or india-rubber tree, with its
smooth grey bark, tall erect trunk, and thick glossy leaves. The
assai-palm, with its slender stem, its graceful head and delicate green
plumes, is at first more numerous than any other. Now appears the
miriti, or mauritia--one of the most beautiful of its tribe, with
pendent clusters of glossy fruit, and enormous spreading fan-like leaves
cut into ribbons; the jupati, with plume-like leaves forty feet and
upwards in length, graceful in the extreme, starting almost from the
ground. Here is seen also the bussu, with stiff entire leaves, also of
great length, growing upright from a short stem, close together, and
serrated along their edges. Higher up still, while the palms become
less numerous, other trees take their places. Among them appears
conspicuous the majestic sumaumera, its flat dome rounded, but not
conical, towering high above the forest. The branches of this tree are
greatly ramified and knotty, and the bark is white. Conspicuous, too,
is the taxi, with brown buds and white flowers; while the margin of the
water is thickly fringed by a belt of arrow-grass, or _frexes_--so
called by the Portuguese--six feet in height. Its name is given in
consequence of being used by the Indians in making arrows for their
blowpipes.
Amid this wonderful mass of forest vegetation grows an intricate tracery
of lianas and climbing sipos, some running round and round the trees,
and holding them in a close embrace; others hanging from branch to
branch in rich festoons, covered with starlike flowers, or dropping in
long lines to the ground,--often to take root and shoot upwards again
round a neighbouring stem, or drooping like the loose cordage of a ship
swinging in the breeze. Often they form so dense and impenetrable a
thicket from the ground upwards that a way must be cleared with an axe
to proceed even a short distance from the banks towards the inner
recesses of the forest.