21 
Santa Martha. The post is expected to arrive on the 11th; and 
I am occupying the interval in excursions around Bogota. 
I return you my grateful thanks for recommending me to the 
office of Curator of the Botanic Gardens at Trinidad. If I 
obtain the appointment, I trust to do good service to Botany. 
I have just despatched a box of seeds, two of dried specimens, 
and one of living plants. They are all carefully packed; and if 
they sustain no injury between this place and Santa Martha, where 
the navigation as before stated is very ill conducted, there is 
little fear of damage on the longer voyage to Europe. Among 
the dried plants, you will find two specimens of a Balmophorous 
species. It is small and rare; the form is globular and it 
inhabits moist temperate woods, growing parasitically on decayed 
vegetable substance. There are also duplicates of one which I had 
sent previously and of which I hope soon to transmit an interesting 
detailed account: the genus is certainly distinct froin Bala- 
nophora. The plant is edible and has curious yellowish rigid 
calyces, which might almost be considered bracteas. 
You will be pleased, I think, with the various species of Gesne- 
riace(B : there are seeds of them all. One, which is equally rare 
and handsome, has terminal drooping spikes; another, a Lisi- 
anthus, is fine and scarlet-flowered. I procured the seeds of it, 
by retracing my steps 100 miles on purpose, but I considered 
these pains well rewarded, by the beauty and abundance of seeds 
which I was thus enabled to gather. 1 have also, at last, suc¬ 
ceeded in getting abundance of seeds of a Mutisia, a Briniys ho,. 
During an excursion of five days to the East of Bogota, I 
gathered an Achimenes and a Lisianthus ; neither of which I had 
seen before. The latter grows very strong and is peculiar to this 
district. I was also much struck with the beauty of a Loasa, 
with noble tulip-shaped flowers, and an upright habit. Its 
stings are very formidable, but, happily, the pain they inflict is of 
short duration. This remarkable species is singularly local, 
affecting only one spot, so far as I can ascertain, namely the 
bottom of a deep ravine, called El Vanon, fifteen miles east of 
Bogota, where it grows in immense qua,ntity. Dr. Cespedes 
informs me that it is undescribed; and he is acquainted with no 
other habitat for it. The scenery and vegetation of this ravine 
are most beautiful; its elevation is 2,000 feet above the sea, and 
as Mr. Marks, who accompanied me, justly observ^ed, you would 
sooner take it for a flower-garden, than as forming part of a 
primeval forest. I also send seeds of two species of BassijloTa, 
one of which inhabits the mountains to the cast of Bogota, at an 
altitude of 13,000 feet. 
