Addisonia 



(Plate 226) 



EUCROSIA MORLEYANA 

 Morley's Eucrosia 



Native of Ecuador 

 Family Amaryludaceas Amarylus Family 



The botanical collector who goes into little-known countries and 

 makes long and perilous journeys in search of plants often becomes 

 discouraged after months of hardships and isolation from congenial 

 spirits. At times, however, he becomes thrilled and inspired by 

 his work. This often occurs when he is tracing the route of some 

 great naturalist and suddenly comes upon a rare plant at the very 

 locality, perhaps at the very spot, where it was discovered fifty or 

 one hundred years before. The writer had such experiences in 1918 

 when making an extensive trip through Ecuador. For over a 

 month he collected along the route, down the Interandean Valley, 

 followed by Alexander von Humboldt and Aime" Bonpland in 1801 

 to 1803; he was at many of the localities visited by Richard Spruce 

 which are so fascinatingly described in his " Notes of a botanist on 

 the Amazon and Andes"; and at Guayaquil he collected some of 

 the plants, obtained by Sinclair and Dr. Hinds, which were reported 

 upon by George Bentham in the " Botany of the Sulphur." One 

 of these is the plant here illustrated. 



The material from which this description was drawn was col- 

 lected by J. N. Rose and George Rose at Huigra, Ecuador, altitude 

 4,000 feet (no. 22593). A number of bulbs were sent to New York 

 and Washington, one of which flowered in the New York Botanical 

 Garden and was painted there in December, 1920. The plant is 

 named for Mr. Edward Morley, of Huigra, who assisted Dr. Rose 

 in his work there in 1918. 



Bentham lists Sinclair's plant as Callipsyche eucrosioides. Baker 

 in his Handbook of Amaryllideae under this name described it very 

 fully. This is so different from the true C. eucrosioides which came 

 from Mexico that we at once concluded that a mistake had been 

 made. Through the kindness of Dr. Britton who was then at Kew 

 we were able to identify our plant with Sinclair's. While in Ecua- 

 dor we had the good fortune also to collect Eucrosia bicolor, the 

 type of the genus Eucrosia, and this must be congeneric with the 

 plant here illustrated and hence we have described our plant as a 

 new species of Eucrosia. 



