402 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1926 
pack mule, and a guide, who had to go afoot, because another animal 
could not be procured. We bought food to last three or four days, 
and next morning, May 1, we started about half-past 10. 
Caparao is only 814 meters in altitude, lying in a hollow between 
two ridges. For an hour or so the trail led up through partly cul- 
tivated or pastured hills, then, as we rose higher, through virgin 
forests with palms and an occasional Araucaria standing out alone. 
A high-climbing leguminous vine, with brilliant scarlet flowers about 
2 inches long in loose pendant racemes 6 to 10 inches long, was 
frequent in places, and the gorgeous purple quaresmas (Z'bouchina 
sp.) were still in bloom—the last I was to see of them. The trail 
became obscure, and Miss Rolf’s questioning brought out the fact 
that the “guide” sent with us had never been this far on the trail. 
There was a resthouse below the peak where we expected to spend 
the night; this we had been told we could reach in three hours and a 
half, but darkness came on with no resthouse in sight, so we camped 
on a shoulder of the mountain, with plenty of down timber, which 
enabled us to keep a big fire going all night—a great comfort, as it 
rained till midnight and then cleared and turned very cold. The 
barometer showed that we were at about 2,100 meters altitude. In 
the morning a herder hunting stray horses put us on the trail to the 
resthouse. 
The resthouse was a low hut of upright sticks, partly chinked 
with mud, the roof a combination of wooden shingles and sheets of 
zinc. Horses had been in the hut so we had to clean it out; then 
we floored it with shingles we found outside, made a fire in the 
stone and clay mound designed for that purpose, and had dinner. 
It drizzled all afternoon but this mountain meadow was rich in. 
grasses and compositae, so I collected, bringing armfuls into the 
hut to put in press and write up. 
The night in this “resthouse” was less comfortable than the 
preceding night in the open, for the roof above the “stove ” was of 
shingles, and in my efforts to warm the hut I had nearly set fire to it, 
so we had to discourage the fire and nearly froze. In the morning, 
leaving the useless “ guide” at the hut, Miss Rolfs, José, the boy 
from Vicosa, and I started for the Pico. Chusquea pinifolia began 
some distance below our first camp and continued up the mountain, 
the plants becoming dwarfed at higher altitudes. This species was 
abundant on Itatiaia, but here I found it in flower for the first time. 
A second species of Chusquea (C. tenuis), with tall arching culms and 
narrow blades, was also in flower. 
From the resthouse and for some distance below we had seen a 
high pyramidal peak, much the highest in sight. The trail led 
through a saddle between this peak and a ridge opposite, obscured 
