300 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 



I started from Tabacal on September 28. The 

 road thence to Guayaquil follows the right bank of 

 the river, as far as to where the latter is confined 

 to a deep chasm, and then crosses to the left bank. 

 The descent is really very gradual, but seems more 

 steep than it is, because the river tosses and 

 foams among the huge stones which impede its 

 course. As we descended, it was interesting to 

 mark the gradual transition to the vegetation of the 

 hot region. Leguminous trees, so scarce in the 

 hills, began to be frequent. A bombaceous tree 

 here and there adorned the forest with its numerous 

 purple flowers. Cinchona magnifolia was budding 

 for flower ; it accompanied me to within 1000 feet 

 of the plain. Enormous figs, with a long cone of 

 exserted roots, straddled over the decayed remains, 

 or often only over the site, of the tree which had 

 served to support them in their infancy, and which 

 they had strangled to death after establishing for 

 themselves a separate existence. 



At about 1500 feet elevation, I met with a 

 Myristica, which grows about Tarapoto at the same 

 altitude. A little lower down I saw the first Neea, 

 and near it a Vismia, not one of those weedy species 

 diffused throughout tropical America, but a hand- 

 some tree, resembling V. uvulifera (from the 

 Casiquiari). These three genera seem rarely to 

 ascend above the hot region. 



Five leagues below Tabacal the road again 

 passes, by a broad pebbly ford, to the right bank 

 at Pozuelos, where we drew up for the night, 

 thoroughly wetted by a soaking shower which had 

 accompanied us for the last hour and a half. 

 Pozuelos is a miserable little bamboo village, but 



