98 
of the Madeira River. And it was along the Rio Beni that we did 
most of our collecting. Our main bases on this stream were 
Huachi, Rurrenabaque, Rio Ivon, and Cachuela Peyele ve, all in 
Bolivia. 
At Huachi, through the courtesy of its owner, Don Elcides 
Mostaja, we were made comfortable in a large cane- sided, palm- 
thatched, -dirt-floored house—the only kind commonly found in 
these parts. With this as a base, parties of us made collecting 
trips in balsas up the Cochabamba some 30 or 40 miles and back 
up the Bopi a considerable distance. About 18 miles up the Cocha- 
bamba River from Huachi lies the Franciscan mission (Covenda), 
with one priest and perhaps 150 Indians. The country 1s full of 
game, which considerably eased our supplies. From Covenda, a 
hard day’s journey up a hog-back rocky ridge, lies the home of 
two interesting drug plants, known as coto and para-coto bark. 
Many worthless barks have been imported and sold in the United 
States in times past under these names, and the plants themselves 
from which coto and para-coto come remain as yet undescribed, 
only a fragmentary specimen of coto having been secured before. 
I was asked to make the trip up into the rain forest with Indians 
to secure a complete series of specimens, and fortunately we found 
coto in several fruiting stages and brought back a series of barks 
of coto, para-coto, and some of the related but worthless spurious. 
forms, together with specimens. Another interesting tree of 
which we secured fruiting specimens is the ajo-ajo, or garlic-garlic 
tree, an enormous forest giant, often 5 feet through, the wood, 
leaves, and fruit of which have a strong onion or garlic odor, the 
source of which I have easily identified one eighth to one fourth 
of a mile away. Both “ wild hogs” (peccaries) and fish crave the 
maple seed-like fruits of this tree—the one rooting among the 
falling leaves for them, the other nibbling them as they rest on the 
river surface. In both cases the meat is rendered unfit for eating. 
At Huachi two young Bolivian scientists, representing their 
government, joined us, and the botanist, Sefior Martin Cardenas, 
was extremely helpful to me in my work. 
In the last days of September we were again on the move. This 
time our balsa rafts were headed down the Beni River to Rur- 
renabaque, a small village about five days distant from Nahe ycavls 
