tham, and published in his ‘‘Notes of a Botanist on the 
Amazon and the Andes’’ 2 (1908) 20, Spruce reveals 
how, in spite of oppressive sickness and weariness, his 
dynamic love of knowledge for the sake of knowledge 
encouraged and spurred him on to incredible feats. 
**T have lately been calculating the number of species that yet re- 
main to be discovered in the great Amazonian forest, from the cata- 
racts of the Orinoco to the mountains of Matto Grosso; taking the 
fact that by moving away a degree of latitude or longitude I found 
about half the plants different as a basis, and considering what very 
narrow strips have, up to this day, been actually explored, and that 
often very inadequately, by Humboldt, Martius and myself, and 
others, there should still remain some 50,000 or even 80,000 species 
undiscovered. To anyone but me and yourself this estimation will ap- 
pear most extravagant, for even Martius (if I recollect rightly) emits an 
opinion that the forests of the Amazon contain but few specimens. .. 
**At the highest point I reached on the Uaupés, the Jaguaraté Caxo- 
eira [now the boundary line between Brazil and Colombia], I spent 
about a fortnight, in the midst of heavy rains, when (according to my 
constant experience) very few forest trees open their flowers. But 
when the time came for my return to Panuré.... the weather cleared 
up, and as we shot down among the rocks which there obstruct the 
course of the river, on a sunny morning, I well recollect how the 
banks of the river had become clad with flowers, as it were by some 
sudden magic, and how I said to myself, as I scanned the lofty trees 
with wistful and disappointed eyes, ‘there goes a new Dipteryx — 
there goes a new Qualea — there goes a new the Lord knows what !’ 
until I could no longer bear the sight, and covering up my face with 
my hands, I resigned myself to the sorrowful reflection that I must 
leave all these fine things ‘to waste their sweetness on the desert air.’ 
From that point upwards, one may safely assume that nearly every- 
thing was new, and I have no doubt that the tract of country lying 
eastward from Pasto and Popaydn where are the head-waters of the 
Japuré, Uaupés, and Guaviare —.... offer as rich a field for a bot- 
anist as any in South America. But I have made enquiries as to the 
possibility of reaching it, and I find that it will be necessary to cross 
paramos of the most rugged and inhospitable character, and after- 
wards risk oneself among wild and fierce Indians, so that I fear its 
exploration must be left to some one younger and more vigorous than 
myself.’’ 
Study of plant collections made during the past ten 
years, chiefly in the Amazon Valley of Brazil and Co- 
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