80 MESSRS. HEMSLEY AND PEARSON ON 
six species. Hight of these were found at or above 18,000 ft., 
and include two from a locality 18,700 ft. above sea-level: these, 
the highest andine plants on record, are Malvastrum flabellatum, 
Wedd., and a grass, Deyeuxia glacialis, Wedd. 
In a preliminary account* of his explorations, speaking of the 
Puna—a plateau 12,000-13,000 ft. above sea-level, which is 
bounded on the East by the Cordillera Real of whieh Sorata and 
Illimani are the highest peaks—Sir Martin Conway tells us that 
“a great part of the year is completely rainless, but from the 
beginning of December till the end of March or April rain is pre- 
cipitated very frequently and with great violence. During the 
remainder of the year the slopes and plains are swept by dry winds, 
and sometimes scorched by a very hot sun so that, except at 
very high levels of perpetual snow, where bad weather lasts over 
a longer period, the surface of the whole country is dried and 
baked. In the rainy season mud avalanches fall down the slopes, 
gullies are deepened, every stream is in flood, waterways are 
ploughed in various directions in the plain, and all the rivers 
eat their way back.’’+ 
The flora of the high regions “appeared to us very sparse, 
though it is only fair to say that the rainy season must be the 
time when the flowers are most numerous, and as we quitted the 
country before the actual commencement of the rains we pro- 
bably only encountered the earlier flowers ..... The flowers 
we found were much scattered about, one here, another there, 
but we never came across any carpet of blossoms such as form 
the great attraction of many high mountain regions.’’t 
Many of the plants in the following list bear flowers which 
appear to be adapted to fertilization by insects. As bearing 
indirectly upon the probability of the existence of insects at 
high levels in this region, the following remarks are interesting : 
‘““Up to an altitude of 17,000 ft., in suitable places, birds were 
numerous, and in a little tarn close to our base camp on Mount 
Sorata, at 16,000 ft. above the sea, we shot geese, gulls, wild 
duck, and snipe, besides several small birds; we saw a number 
of rather large green-headed humming-birds.’’§ 
The plants from the higher elevations in this collection are 
* Journ. R. Geogr. Soc. xiv. (1899), p. 14 et seqq. +t L.e. p. 16. 
t Lie. p. 20. § L.c. p. 20. 
