Of the tree called macagua[1] and its fruit and wood.

Translated by Carly Fajardo ’23

The macagua tree is elegant and large. Its fruit are like small olives, and they taste like cherries. The wood from the tree is very good to work with, and its leaves are very green and fresh. Now, because many of the trees from these parts have similar leaves, I will refrain from describing which have distinctive features in their leaves, except for those whose differences are extraordinary. So that it is better understood, I want to say that in these Indies there are millions of trees that have very similar leaves that resemble those of the walnut tree, except bigger or smaller, or more or less wide, or thicker or thinner, or more or less green—other than this generality, many trees are like others; in spite of this, the men who work the fields know how to distinguish them by the bark or thickness of the leaves, or by the fruit, the flowers, or other peculiarities by which they can  be set aside and differentiated and made themselves known.

[1] Pseudolmedia spuria, in the family moraceae.