This parasitical plant has a trailing stem, not unlike the common ivy, but not so woody, by which it attaches itself to the trunks of trees, and sucks the moisture which their bark derives from the lichens and other cryptogamia, but without drawing nourishment from the tree itself, like the misletoe and loranthus.  The Indians in Mexico propagate it by planting cuttings at the foot of trees selected for that purpose.  It rises to the height of 18 or 20 feet; the flowers are of a greenish yellow, mixed with white.  The plant is subcylindrical about eight or ten inches long, of a yellow color when gathered, but dark brown or black when imported into Europe.  It is one-celled siliquose, and pulpy within, wrinkled on the outside, and full of a vast number of seeds like grains of sand, having when properly prepared, a peculiar and delicious fragrance.  It should be gathered before it is fully ripe.

Different species of vanilla are natives of Guiana, and it is found in large quantities along the banks of its rivers, and in the wooded districts which intersperse the savannahs.  The oily and balsamic substance which the minute seeds possess, may be found to have medicinal qualities.  Its cultivation can be connected with no difficulties; it needs only to plant the slips among trees, and to keep them clear of weeds.  It would prove therefore a great addition to a cocoa plantation.  In 1825 the price was, in Germany, sixty-six dollars (equal to L9) per pound, and twenty-five to thirty dollars are paid for it in Martinique.

Humboldt states that the annual value of vanilla exported from the state of Vera Cruz was 40,000 dollars, L8,000 sterling.  Some vanilla is exported from Maranham.  The cultivation of vanilla, which was introduced into Java in the year 1847, is said to have made considerable progress, there being now no fewer than thirty plantations.

The fruit of this orchideous plant is entirely neglected in the province of Caracas, though abundant crops of it might be gathered on the humid coast between Porto Cabello and Ocumare, especially at Turiamo, where the pods attain the length of nearly a foot.  The English and American merchants often seek to make purchases at the port of La Guayra, but with difficulty procure it in small quantities.

In the valleys that descend from the chain of coast towards the Caribbean sea, in the province of Truxillo, as well as in the mission of Guiana, near the cataracts of the Orinoco, a great quantity of the vanilla pods might be collected, the produce of which would be still more abundant, if, according to the practice of the Mexicans, the plant were disentangled from time to time from the other creepers, with which it is intertwined and stifled.