The largest of the Amazon forest trees are the massaranduba (Mimusops data), called the cow-tree because of its milky sap, the samadma (Eriodendron samauma) or silk-cotton tree, the pdu d'arco (Tecoma speciosa), pdu d'alho (Catraeva tapia), bacori (Symphonea coccinea), sapucaia (Lecythis ollaria), and castanheira or brazil-nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa).
The nuts are the fruit of the Bertholletia excelsa, one of the largest trees of the Amazon forest region, and are enclosed, sixteen to eighteen in number, in a hard, thick pericarp. Another nut-producing tree is the sapucaia (Lecythis ollaria), whose nuts are enclosed in a larger pericarp, and are considered to be better flavoured than those first described.
These are made up, as Prince Max zu Neuwied found in southern Bahia in 1817, " of the genera Cocos, Melastoma, Bignonia, Rhexia, Mimosa, Inga, Bombax, Ilex, Laurus, Myrthus, Eugenia, Jacaranda, Jatropha, Visinia, Lecythis, Ficus, and a thousand other, for the most part, unknown species of trees."