240 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



a species of Lucuma, producing an edible fruit ; 

 that name is applied to many species of Lucuma 

 and Achras, all natives of warm or hot countries. 

 Another evidence of the approach to a hot climate 

 was in the existence of a species of Echites, 

 twining among the bushes, and in an epiphytal 

 Marcgraviacea, quite similar in its long scarlet 

 spikes to A T orantea guianensis, though the bracts 

 are small patellae, not elongated sacs, as in that 

 species. A very odoriferous Citrosma, with large 

 thin leaves, three together, is known by the name 

 of Guayiisa, and is often taken in infusion, like the 

 Guayiisa of Canelos, which, however, is a species 

 of Ilex. 



There were a good many herbs, of species not 

 seen elsewhere. One Composita, with virgate 

 stems 12 feet high, large alternate lobed leaves, 

 and from each axil a small leafy ramulus bearing at 

 its apex a corymb of white radiate flowers, was very 

 ornamental. Orchidese were tolerably abundant, 

 but prettier even than these were two Bromeliaceae; 

 the one seemed at first sight merely a mass of long 

 scarlet flowers growing out of the moss on'old trees 

 and stones, for the leaf-sheaths are imbricated into 

 a little bulb, and the blade is reduced to a spine ; 

 the other (apparently an /Echmea) has broadish 

 soft leaves and large violet flowers looking at 

 a distance more like those of an Iris or an 

 Amaryllidea. 



On the 4th of August my company started for 

 the forest, our destination being the Rio de Puma- 

 cocha, a large stream rising in Azuay and falling 

 into the Chanchan at about 4000 feet altitude, on 

 the farther side of which much Red Bark has been 



