There is another kind of wild fig-tree, with an enormous height and thickness of stem, to which the English residents give the name of Buttress-tree, from several large thin plates which stand out from the bottom of the trunk. They begin to jut out from the stem at the height of ten or twelve feet from the bottom, and gradually increase in breadth till they reach the ground, where they are connected with the large roots of the tree. At the surface of the ground these plates are often five feet broad, and throughout not more than a few inches thick. The various species of _Laurus_ form fine trees; they flower in the months of April and May, at which season the atmosphere is loaded with the rich perfume of their small white blossoms. When their fruit is ripe, it forms the principal food of the Jacutinga (_Penelope Jacutinga_, Spix), a fine large game bird. The large _Cassiæ_ have a striking appearance when in flower; and, as an almost equal number of large trees of _Lasiandra Fontanesiana_, and others of the _Melastoma_ tribe, are in bloom at the same time, the forests are then almost one mass of yellow and purple from the abundance of these flowers. Rising amid these, the pink-coloured flowers of the _Chorisia speciosa_—a kind of silk cotton-tree—can be easily distinguished. It is also a large tree, with a stem, covered with strong prickles, from five to eight feet in circumference unbranched to the height of thirty or forty feet. The branches then form a nearly hemispherical top, which, when covered with its thousands of beautiful large rose-coloured blossoms, has a striking effect when contrasted with the masses of green, yellow, and purple of the surrounding trees. Many of these large trunks afford support to various species of climbing and twining shrubs, belonging to the natural orders _Bignoniaceæ_, _Compositæ_, _Apocyneæ_, and _Leguminosæ_, the stems of which frequently assume a very remarkable appearance. Several of them are often twisted together and dangle from the branches of the trees, like large ropes, while others are flat and compressed, like belts: of the latter description I have met with some six inches broad, and not more than an inch thick. Two of the finest climbers are the beautiful large trumpet-flowered _Solandra grandiflora_, which, diffusing itself among the largest trees of the forest, gives them a magnificence not their own; and a showy species of Fuchsia (_F. integrifolia_, Cambess.),[3] which is very common, attaching itself to all kinds of trees, often reaching to the height of from sixty to one hundred feet, and then falling down in the most beautiful festoons.