388 



The Journal of Heredity 



prcciation of their rich flavor, juiciness, 

 and freedom from objectionable seeds 

 did not come until I was served, at 

 Charles J. Kder's home in the l)eautiful 

 Cauca valley of Colombia, a saucer of 

 thoroughly ripe ones, with cream and 

 sugar. The scarcity of the former 

 article in the Andean region makes it 

 difficult for the agricultural explorer 

 to test such fruits as blackberries 

 and raspberries under conditions com- 

 paral)le with those to which he is 

 accustomed in the United States. 

 There are, I believe, a number of ber- 

 ries in the Andes which would compare 

 favorably with our own, if served in the 

 same fashion ; but when one buys them 

 in the market, picked before fully 

 mature and badly bruised in transit, 

 and eats them without the customary 

 concomitants, he is not certain to ap- 

 preciate them at their fidl value. 



I first came upon the Andes berry 

 in the highlands of northern Guate- 

 mala. Here it is found, in the region 

 of Coban, at elevations of 4,000 to 6,000 

 feet. It is not abundant, as it is in 

 northern South America, nor have I 

 ever seen plants of such large size as in 

 the latter region. Indeed, in Guate- 

 mala it usually occurs in the form of a 

 straggling or trailing bush not over 

 six (jr eight feet in height. It frequents 

 clay soils, and open, sunny places. 



The fruits produced by these wild 

 plants in Guatemala (for I never saw 

 it cultivated in that country) are 

 oblong, up to an inch and a half in 

 length, and dark maroon. They re- 

 mind one of loganberries, except that 

 they are broader in form and somewhat 

 sweeter in taste. They have small, 

 soft seeds, and are very juicy. The 

 fla\(jr is rich and delicious. The 

 Indians, as they wander over the moun- 

 tainsides, gather and eat them, but the 

 quantity available is never large enough 

 to warrant carrying the fruit to market, 

 — at least, I ha\e ne\er seen it on sale 

 in an\' of the Guatemalan towns. The 

 Kekchi know this berry as unk-tokan ; 

 the latter word is applied to several 

 species of Rubus, and the prefix uuk 

 is used to designate this particular one. 

 We have here, in fact, another example 



of the remarkable binomial nomencla- 

 ture employed by the Guatemalan 

 Indians of Maya descent, a system 

 which recognizes botanical relation- 

 ships, in a limited way, and which prob- 

 ably has been in existence since long 

 before the Conquest. 



In Costa Rica I again found the 

 plant, growing abundantly upon the 

 slopes of the volcano Irazu at elevations 

 between 6,000 and 7,000 feet. In cer- 

 tain places it forms solid stands, twenty 

 or thirty yards in diameter. The plants 

 are suberect in habit, and reach about 

 six feet in height. The fruits are differ- 

 ent from those seen in Guatemala, 

 being somewhat smaller, lighter red in 

 color, and not so rich in flavor. Botan- 

 ical specimens collected here, however, 

 prove that the plant is not specifically 

 different from the one studied in Guate- 

 mala, hence we can only conclude that 

 we are dealing with a variation such as 

 those which give rise to horticultural 

 forms. 



ABUNDANT IN COLOMBIA 



Upon reaching the highlands of 

 Colombia, in the department of Cun- 

 dinamarca, I again found Rubus oJaucus 

 growing as a wild plant, and here, for 

 the first time, I saw its luscious fruits 

 offered in the markets. In the city of 

 Bogota they can be obtained during a 

 large part of the year; they are sold 

 under the name of mora de Castilla, 

 which does not, however, serv^e to dis- 

 tinguish them from the fruits of other 

 species of Rubus, since several which 

 grow wild in this region are commonly 

 sold under the same name. The use of 

 the term mora, originally meaning mul- 

 berry in Spanish, has been extended in 

 Latin America to include man>' fruits 

 of the genus Rubus. To indicate a 

 variety of superior quality the Colom- 

 bians generally add the phrase de 

 Castilla {Castiliati), a usage which 

 has come down from Colonial days, 

 when the best of everything was sup- 

 posed to come from the Mother Coun- 

 try-. 



The 1)1. Hit is foun<l in considerable 

 abundance upon the mountainsides 

 not far from Bogota, ma ink' at eleva- 



