This doesn't let me lose, I've been searching and thought the flower clusters on succulent like stalks look a bit like the inflorescence of an Osmoxylon sp., (Araliaceae) but that is as far as I got..
https://www.google.be/search?q...
I've been searching in the Araleaceae family too, but didn't get further..

It looks like coming straight out from the tree trunk, though there are the winding stems of a climber very close too. It was dark under the tree canopy. I should have thought at the time to take more details and more angles, but there is so much to see all around you, that my attention jumped from one thing to another..

I cropped out part to have a closer view of the flowers.

Maybe it is an epiphytic succulent?

A difficult one Myriam, there seems to be a lot of trees in Brazil which have fruits coming directly off the main branches. This does look like it's coming from the tree trunk, the other roots look like epiphytic orchid roots, you can see the leaves of an orchid.

I looked on the Brazilian trees site but found nothing, I decided to look at more links on the site. On the 'Links' I went to 'Mudas e sementes', I know sementes is seeds.

http://www.arvores.brasil.nom....

From the list of Links I went to 'trees.com.br' where I found several trees for sale, along with photos and more information when clicking on a photo giving nativity etc.

So far I have only looked at the 'species' where I came across something which might give a clue, Dendropanax cuneatum ..

http://www.trees.com.br/detalh...

The interesting thing about this species is the thick scaly stems the flower buds are on, it reminds me much of Eriobotrya japonica, you will see what I mean in the following photo ..

https://www.google.co.uk/searc...

Maybe Araliaceae is the place to look, or Rosaceae which Eriobotrya japonica belongs to .

Maybe a Schefflera?

http://plantillustrations.org/...

https://www.google.co.uk/searc...

To me it looks like an Orchid and it seems to be in bud. I have no idea which one, but I will do some digging.

Thank you very much Janet, yes, I see what you mean with the possible relation of Eriobotrya japonica with my tree.
I also think this will be a hard nut to crack!

But your link to that site where they sell trees is very useful, I already found some I needed an ID for!
It is very hard or even impossible to photograph trees in the forest as there is nearly always abundant other vegetation blocking the sight, it would be handy to be one of those little monkeys I sometimes met running about on the tree branches high up in the tree canopy.

Oops cross-posted, thanks Ursula for jumping in!
I'll have a look at your last links Janet!

I could be totally off, but the leaves look to me like a Monocot.

This site lists orchids by state and by blooming times. Can you tell us the location where you saw this plant, please?

http://www.delfinadearaujo.com...

hmm, by state doesn't work too well…

I don't think that's it, but I am looking at something like Capanemia superflua and I could easily imagine those buds turning into the beautiful clusters of blooms.
Would you mind if I post your pictures on the Orchidsourceforum? The folks over there are really great identifying something like that.

You could be right Ursula, there is obviously an orchid near the flowering stems but it's not very clear as to where those stems are coming from. It looks to me like they are bursting out of the tree trunk.

Could you crop another photo off Myriam, so that it shows the area where it looks to hit the tree, a crop as close as you can get would help. I've cropped the crop more and enlarged it a little but you might be able to get a good crop from the original, the area I've circled in red.

The place where I found it Ursula is the Atlantic Rainforest in the Rio de Janeiro state, around Paraty.
Here is the crop Janet..It is a bit unclear whether or not it sprouts from the tree trunk..if I only had taken more shots of it..

Thanks Myriam, I still think it comes from the tree trunk, there's nothing else visible from which it looks attached to.

I hope I am not getting in trouble doing this, but I posted your pictures here
http://forum.theorchidsource.c...
I want to know myself what this is!!

No problem at all Ursula!

Now, I'm sure the flower bundle is definitely coming straight out from the tree.
I had been deleting a lot of photos while editing because they were too poor.
But then I remembered I still had the unedited originals on an external hard disk, I had put as a back-up at the time. As I had the date I could track back the sequence of photos I took on that day!
So what we thought could be the leaves of an Orchid seems to be an Anthurium with spend flowers.
On these shots you can see that there are more of those flower bundles along the stem of the tree which looks small or still young.

It's a good job you still had those photos Myriam! The photos are good!

Is there any chance you can get a closer crop of the leaves of the tree? The third shot appears to show some leaves to the left of the shot.

I see how very dark it was! Dark is different to dull.

Could we be looking at Annonaceae?

https://www.google.co.uk/searc...

Yes, dark is different from dull Janet!
here is what I could get from the leaves, they look like so many other trees have, sighhh..

It could be Janet that Annonaceae is the family to look at, but it is hard to know how the fruits will turn out. I think we have too little elements in this case for a chance to Id it.