est producers, but it is also grown for export in Espirito Santo,
Bahia and Ceara. The export in 1905 was 10,820,604 bags of 132 lb.
each, with an official valuation of L21,420,330. Sugar cane, another
exotic, has an equally wide distribution, and cotton is grown along
the coast from Maranhao to Sao Paulo. Other economic plants and fruits
having a wide distribution are tobacco, maize, rice, beans, sweet
potatoes, bananas, cacao (_Theobroma cacao_), mandioca or cassava
(_Manihot utilitissima_), _aipim_ or sweet mandioca (_M. aipi_),
guavas (_Psidium guayava_, Raddi), oranges, lemons, limes, grapes,
pineapples, _mamao_ (_Carica papaya_), bread-fruit (_Artocarpus
incisa_), jack fruit (_A. integrifolia_), and many others less known
outside the tropics. Among the palms there are several of great
economic value, not only as food producers but also for various
domestic uses. The fruit of the _pupunha_ or peach palm (_Guilielma
speciosa_) is an important food among the Indians of the Amazon
valley, where the tree was cultivated by them long before the
discovery of America. Humboldt found it among the native tribes of the
Orinoco valley, where it is called _pirijao_. The ita palm,
_Mauritia_, _flexuosa_ (a fan-leaf palm) provides an edible fruit,
medullary meal, drink, fibre, roofing and timber, but is less used on
the Amazon than it is on the lower Orinoco. The _assai_ (_Euterpe
oleracea_) is another highly-prized palm because of a beverage made
from its fruit along the lower Amazon. A closely-related species or
variety (_Euterpe edulis_) is the well-known palmito or cabbage palm
found over the greater part of Brazil, whose terminal phylophore is
cooked and eaten as a vegetable. Another highly useful palm is the
_carnauba_ or _carnahuba_ (_Copernicia cerifera_) which supplies
fruit, medullary meal, food for cattle, boards and timber, fibre, wax
and medicine. The fibre of the _piassava (Leopoldinia piassava_, or
_Attalea funifera_) is widely used for cordage, brushes and brooms.
There are many other palms whose fruit, fibre and wood enter largely
into the domestic economy of the natives, but the list given shows how
important a service these trees rendered to the aboriginal inhabitants
of tropical America, and likewise how useful they still are to the
people of tropical Brazil. Another vegetable product of the Amazon
region is made from the fruit of the _Paullin