The bougainvillea IS a tree in Brazil and also a vine. It was named after a French navigator, M. de Bougainville. The tree grows in the mountains around Rio de Janeiro, where in the springtime you can see its magnificent purple flowers against the forest greens. The vine varieties grow from Bahia down to the south. The bougainvillea is VERY dear to my heart! Someone in Brazil has a page dedicated to the largest bougainvillea tree in the world. See for yourself!
The cajueiro - cashew tree - is native to the whole north and northeastern coast of Brazil, but it grows as far south as Sπo Paulo. And yes, it's the source of the delicious nut we all love. But not in the way you might expect. The cashew is a beautiful, aromatic, pear-shaped fruit, yellow to bright red in color, very tart and rich in vitamin C. It is used in juices, ice-creams and desserts. The nut hangs at the bottom of the fruit, like the cedilha under the letter τ...You can see it really well in this picture of a green cashew. Click here to see ripe cashews, or go to our Juices Page.
Here it is in all its glory! The fruit is called jabuticaba and it grows all over the trunk and branches. The jabuticaba is small and round, purplish in color on the outside and white on the inside. It's absolutely delicious. People - and birds! - love to eat it and make it into jams, liqueurs, etc.(the people, not the birds...) One of my dearest memories of Brazil is sitting under a jabuticabeira, sucking on these marvelous jabuticabas (you sort of pop the fruit with your teeth, then drink the juice and suck on it and spit out the seed...now that you have the directions, late October is the time to go to Brazil to enjoy one of the greatest gustatory experiences of your life!) The jabuticabeira grows mostly in southeastern Brazil (Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Sπo Paulo, etc. Get a map of Brazil and plan your next trip...) To see large JPEGs: Jabuticabeira in Bloom, Jabuticabeira, Unripe Jabuticabas, Ripe Jabuticabas.
Photo courtesy of Cristina Umino and Carlos Alberto Brefe, Campinas, Brazil. Muito obrigada, Cristina and Carlos.
The urucum is another of my favorites, because it's not only ornamental, it's a very useful tree indeed. It is a small tree that produces beautiful white-pinkish flowers and later bright red fruit clusters. The small red seeds when crushed produce a coloring powder which is used by Brazilian Indians to decorate their bodies and utensils. It protects the body against the sun and insect bites. The powder is also used in Brazilian regional cooking and has industrial applications in tanning lotions and as a natural food coloring, since it contains vitamins A, B and betacarotene. The urucum grows practically all over Brazil. When you go to street markets in Rio and in the Amazon, look for it among the spices; you can't miss that bright red powder.
Who would have thought it...The American cosmetics company Aveda now makes a line of natural lipsticks from urucum called URUKU LIP COLOUR. The trees are organically farmed for Aveda by members of the indigenous Yawanawa tribe.