xxvin HIDDEN TREASURE 499 



The parts of the map covered with forest are 

 represented by scattered trees, among which the 

 following forms are easily recognisable : 



No. i is the Wax palm (Palma de Ramos of the 

 Quitonians ; Ceroxylon andicola, H. et B.), which 

 I have seen on Tunguragua up to 10,000 feet. 

 Nos. 2 and 3 are Tree-ferns (Helechos) the former 

 a Cyathea, whose trunk (sometimes 40 feet high) 

 is much used for uprights in houses ; the latter an 

 Alsophila with a prickly trunk, very frequent in 

 the forest of Canelos about the Rio Verde. No. 4 

 is the Aliso {Betula acuminata> Kunth), one of the 

 most abundant trees in the Ouitonian Andes ; it 



*"/ 



descends on the beaches of the Pastasa to near 4000 

 feet, and ascends on the paramos of Tunguragua to 

 12,000. But there is one tree (represented thus ^=), 

 occupying on the map a considerable range of 

 altitude, which I cannot make out, unless it be 

 a Podocarpus, of which I saw a single tree on 

 Mount Abitagua, though a species of the same 

 genus is abundant at the upper limit of the forest 

 in some parts of the Western Cordillera. A large 

 spreading tree is figured here and there in the 

 forest of Canelos which may be the Tocte a true 

 \Valnut (Juglans), with an edible fruit rather larger 

 than that of the European species. The remaining 

 trees represented, especially those towards the 

 upper limit of the forest, are mostly too much alike 

 to admit of the supposition that any particular 

 species was intended by them. 



