23 
tlie central column is thickly set with clusters of male blossoms, 
and forms, when taken all together, a mass three feet long, and 
four inches thick. Half is concealed within the spatha, from 
which the other portion projects in a gracefully recurved form. 
The fragrance is most powerful and delicious, beyond that of any 
other plant, and so diffusive, that the air, for many yards around, 
was alive with myriads of annoying insects, which first attracted 
my notice : the closeness of the forest not permitting me to discern 
the blossoms at any distance. I had, afterwards, to carry it in 
my hands for twelve miles, and though I killed a number of 
insects that followed me, the next day, a great many still hovered 
about it, which had come from the wood where it grew. 
Some of the Mosses of the Paramo, now sent, are peculiarly 
interesting: also a box of the Orchidece, which I gathered at a 
height of 10,000 feet, containing many new and beautiful species. 
The cold, at that height is intense, particularly in the morning 
and evening; the absolute degree of cold is not great, but it is 
extremely penetrating, and sets the teeth chattering violently. 
However reluctant to give way, I found myself constrained to 
own its trying effects. 
You will be gratified, I think, with some bottles of Balanopho- 
rous plants : the spirits sold here are so weak and inferior, that 
it will perhaps be well to fill them again in England. The tall 
slender specimen is what Dr. Mutis proposed calling Helosis 
aquatica. Dr. Cespedes showed me a very bad figure of it, as 
described by Mutis, before I saw the growing plant. It is so 
abundant in some spots, that I could have loaded a waggon with 
it; none of its allies are found in nearly equal profusion. One 
of the species resembles what I gathered in Ocana, but is very 
distinct, having a separate envelope which, in an early stage, 
covers the expanding flower stem. 
1 had hoped to give, in this letter, an account of the fearful 
avalanche, which caused such loss of life and property last year, 
but my time and paper forbid any details. I passed over the 
place, on my way to the Paramo : it stretches twelve miles, and 
from being a rich fertile district, is now reduced to desolate 
waste, where not a particle of vegetation remains. The fall of 
the then freezing mass overthrew whole forests, and buried the 
houses, strewing the country with stones and fragments of up¬ 
rooted trees, and engulphing, it is said, upwards of six hundred 
human beings. 
O 
{To be continued) 
