96 
or Quichua Indian villages perched on their sides, are the home 
and center of the coca (cocaine plant) growing industry, bright 
green patches of which were bracketed here and there on the steep 
slopes, their orderly lines of bushes in striking contrast with the 
tangled and disorderly profusion and confusion of the general 
vegetation. Little orchards of cherimoya, cyphomandra, and ar- 
notto trees clustered about the villages, while here and there patches 
of dwarf bananas gave a tropical effect to the landscape, even 
though palms were lacking. Wild tobacco (Nicotiana Rusbyt) 
and numerous other members of the potato family were common 
where the trail crossed the valley bottoms. Untamed raspberries 
clambered over the stony, grassy, low mountain tops, and beautiful 
Hippeastrums and other Amaryllids made bright spots of color 
among the ground ferns, as we descended to Caflamina on the 
4,000-foot level. Here and at Espia, about 30 miles farther on, 
we made a stay of several weeks, waiting for balsa rafts to take 
us down the Bopi River, for Espia is the head of navigation on 
this route. During our stay at these points we were shown many 
courtesies by the superintendent of the Cafamina finca, Mr. L. 
Douillé, and his wife. Until our base camp was established at 
Espia we were much indebted to them for hospitality. 
At Espia and Caftamina we made considerable collections, al- 
though the season was not the time of profuse bloom. The valley 
was rich in orchids, of both showy and inconspicuous-flowered 
species, but most of them had bloomed in May, at the end of the 
rainy season. So we saw largely plants in fruit and follage—some 
of them magnificent clumps, recalling huge Boston ferns, as with 
their hanging leafy sprays they perched on the large limbs of trees. 
Giant cacti of the branched Cereus type were common—some of 
them over forty feet high. Peperomias, bromeliads, ferns, and 
several species of cacti shared roosting space on the trees with the 
orchid family. Bromeliads, in fact, were so common both as 
perchers and’as ground plants that the almost leafless trees on 
many hillsides were gray with several species of them, while the 
mountain flanks were exclusively carpeted with them in consider- 
able areas in some places. Perhaps the most striking element of 
the vegetation in this valley to me were the Erythrinas, sometimes 
called the hummingbird trees, because their flowers are supposed 
