ON THE AMAZON AND RIO NEGRO. 209 
They consisted principally of three or four Paspalums and as many 
Panicums, and there were mixed with these a good number of Cyperacee 
: —one of them (a Scleria) a most abominable * Tiririca,’ or cut-grass, 
by walking among which my shins were completely tattooed. As is 
mostly the case on plains within the tropies, these Grasses and Sedges 
grew chiefly in solitary tufts, with bare spots of earth between them. 
Where the soil was rather peaty, in these bare spots, grew a leafless 
Utricularia, with a broad compressed tridentate spur, and a pretty 
Sundew, with leaves smaller than those of our Drosera longifolia, but 
with a much larger rose-coloured flower. In drier parts of the campo 
grew three Orchises, of the genus Habenaria, one with a long raceme 
of greenish-white flowers; a second with shorter racemes of yellow 
flowers, and so abundant as to recall the Bog Asphodel of our northern 
moors; the third, which had rather larger yellowish flowers, was more 
scarce, but it possessed the delicious scent of Orchis conopsea, wanting 
to the other two. Along with these grew a slender erect Polygala 
(near P. brizoides, St. Hil.), but eighteen inches high, with racemes of 
purple-and-white flowers; an .4masonia, probably new; a couple of 
Turneras ; two or three herbaceous Rubiaceae, etc. In very bare places, 
as the water began to cover the soil, sprang up a minute Sauvagesia, 
barely three inches high, with pretty pink flowers. In drier ground 
towards the skirits of the campo, grew a small species of Arum, with a 
spathe of pure white and a hemispherical root, the plane side being 
downwards. With this was a large branched herbaceous Polygala with 
white flowers. 
Large ant-hills here and there by their decay form a sort of island 
in the marsh; on these grew two Liliaceae, one with a solitary radical 
yellow flower, the other with a few terminal rather large flowers of the 
most delicate pale blue. ^ 
On one side of the campo the soil seems better, and Grasses and - 
Sedges grow rank and high. This part is quite glorious with a - 
shrubby Melastoma of four or five feet high, completely clad with large 
purple flowers: it is quite new to me. Scattered stunted shrubs of a 
Byrsonima and a Curatella formed the sole arborescent vegetation of 
the central part of the campo; but it was belted round by tall Jauari 
Palms (Astrocaryum Jauari, Mart.), with an inner fringe of Mimosas, 
Myrtles, Melastomas, Malpighias, etc. ; while outside of all, the dense 
dark forest stretched away to an immeasurable distance. 
VOL. V. 
2s 
