278 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



Cyclanthacece. - - Three scandent species of Carludovica, all 

 with bifid leaves. 



Pahnacece. Frequent enough, but of few species. The Cadi 

 or Ivory palm is everywhere dispersed, and is precisely the same 

 species as I saw at Puma-cocha. I gathered and analysed the 

 male inflorescence, but the stripping off the fronds for thatch is 

 unfavourable to the development of the fruit, which I never saw 

 in a perfect state. A very prickly Bactris, 20 feet high, with five 

 or six stems from a root, grows here and there ; and in shady 

 places three or four Geonomse are frequent. The Euterpe grows 

 chiefly at the upper limit of the Red Bark. A noble Attalea 

 (called Cumbi and Pal ma real) extends up the valley of San 

 Antonio to the lower limit of the Bark region. It has a slight 

 beard to the petiole. 



Bromeliacece. Many species are perched about on the trees, 

 but none of striking aspect. The presence or absence of this 

 family affords no indication of climate on the equator, for trees 

 of Buddleia and Polylepis, at the upper limit of arborescent 

 vegetation, are as thickly hung with a Bromeliacea as any trees 

 on the Amazon. 



Amaryllidea, 2. Both herbaceous twiners, the one a Bomarea, 

 with pendulous umbels of showy flowers, calyx red, corolla white, 

 with violet spots ; an order, so far as my experience goes, entirely 

 absent from equinoctial plains, but tolerably abundant in the 

 temperate and cool regions of the Andes. 



Musacea. Heliconia, two species. 



Zingiberacetz. Cossus, three species. This is about the 

 highest point at which I have seen any Cossus or Heliconia, two 

 genera frequent in the plains. 



Marantacece. Two or three species of Maranta were observed. 



Orckidacece, 28. - -Tolerably abundant, but comprising few 

 handsome species. Most epiphytal Orchids love light, and in 

 the dense lofty forest they are rarely seen, and often inaccessible, 

 for they grow on the upper branches of large trees, and descend 

 to the lower branches only on the margin of wide streams, where 

 the whole of one side of the trees is exposed to the light. At 

 Limon, however, in ancient clearings, now become pastures, 

 where a few trees of the primitive forest have been left, and 

 where others have here and there sprung up, despite the treading 

 about of cattle, the branches are laden with Orchids and 

 Vacciniums ; and although none of the former be of remarkable 

 beauty, yet they are in so great variety, and there is such a charm 

 in seeing them on the rugged mossy trees in their native woods, 

 that to me they were always objects of interest. The finest 

 Orchid, as to its flowers, is an Odontoglossum, with large 

 chocolate-coloured flowers, margined with yellow. As respects 

 foliage, a fairy Stelis (S. calodyction, MSS.), with roundish pale 



