Buriti Palm

Buriti Palm (Mauritia Sagus vinifera), a beautiful palm which grows in great abundance in the swamps of Northern Brazil, particularly on the Orinoco. It is one of the loftiest of palms, reaching 100 feet. The stem yields a kind of sago, which is cut in slices and eaten like bread; the pulp and seed of the sago-like fruit are eaten and made into sweetmeats—and the abundant sweet sap before flowering is drunk fresh, or is easily fermented into palm wine by the natives. Humboldt describes how the Guaraní people at the mouth of the Orinoco not only derive their food from the tree, but make their nets, mats, hats, &c. from its fibres and leaves, and yet more literally live upon the tree, by suspending huts of its matting from stem to stem during the rainy season, annually returning to this arboreal existence. M. flexuosa, the Moriti or Sea Palm of Trinidad and Brazil, is of similar appearance and uses; but its leaves yield better fibre, and its stem a useful wood.