BERTHOLLE'TIA, a genus of plants belonging to the natural order Lecythidecem, and named after Berthollet the celebrated chemist.. The only species is a tree of large dimensions, and forma vast forests on the banks of the Oronoco. Its stem averages 100 feet in height and two feet in diameter, not branching till near the top, whence its boughs hang down in a graceful linemen Its leaves are undivided, arranged alternately upon the branches, about two feet long and five or aix inches wide, of a brilliant green. Its flowers arc yellowish white, with a calyx having a deciduous bonder divided into two piectas, a corolla of 6 unequal petals joined together at the base, and a very great number of white stamens joined into a thick fleshy ring. The fruit is figured and described by Humboldt as a spherical case as big as a man's bead, with four cella, in each of which are six or eight nuts ; its shell is rugged and furrowed, and covered with a rind of a green colour. The nuts are irregularly triangular bodies, having a hard shell, which is very much wrinkled, and which is fixed to a central placenta by their lower end ; their seed, as is well known, is a firm oily almond of a pure white colour. They are sold in the shops of London under the name of Brazil Mita.
" The Portuguese of Para," says Humboldt, "have for a long time driven a great trade with the wits of this tree, which the natives call Invin and the Spaniards' Almendron ; they send cargoes to French Guyana, whence they are shipped for England cud Lisbon. The kernels yield a large quantity of oil well suited for lamps." The same traveller describes himself and his companion Bonpland as having found these nuts a great luxury when they were following the course of the Oronoco. For three months they had lived upon bad choco late, rice boiled in water, always without butter, and generally without salt, when they met with a store of Bertholletia nuts. It was in the course ref June, and the Indians laud just gathered in their harvest of them. The kernels were found delicious when fresh, but unfortunately they are apt to become rancid on account of the great quantity of oil which they contain.
foot, which last is largo and oval, but much leas than the mantle. There ie a kind of veil at the anterior border of the head, prolonged on each side into a sort of appendage cleft laterally. The two tenta