76 NOTES OF A NATURALIST. 



at moderate intervals. Vegetation, if not luxuriant, 

 finds the needful conditions, and in the gardens of 

 Surco tropical fruits, such as bananas, cherimolias, 

 oranges, and granadillas, are cultivated with tolerable 

 success. Of the indigenous plants 'in flower at this 

 season the large majority were Coinpositce, chiefly be- 

 longing to the sun-flower tribe {^Heliantho'idece), a 

 group characteristic of the New World.* It was 

 tantalizing to see so many new forms of vegetation 

 pass before one's eyes untouched. Most of them were 

 indeed finally captured, but several yet remain as 

 fleeting images in my memory, never fixed by closer 

 observation. 



About oife p.m. we reached the chief village of the 

 valley, San Juan de Matucana, fifty-five miles from 

 Lima, and about 7800 feet above the sea. The train 

 halted here for twenty minutes, and we discovered 

 that very tolerable food is to be had at a little inn 

 kept by an Italian. Hunger having been already 

 stilled, the time was available for botanizing in the 

 neighbourhood of the station, and, along with several 

 cosmopolite weeds which we are used to call European, 

 I found a good many types not before seen. Owing 

 to the accident of having left my gloves in the carriage, 

 I unwisely postponed to collect one plant not seen by 

 me again during my stay in Peru. This was a small 

 species of Tiipa, a genus now united to Lobelia, with 

 flowers of a lurid purple colour, which is said to have 



* Of 138 genera of Hclianthoidece 107 are exclusively confined to 

 the American continent, 18 more are common to America and distant 

 regions of the earth, one only is limited to tropical Asia, and two to 

 tropical Africa, the remainder being scattered among remote islands — 

 the Sandwich group, the Galapagos, Madagascar, and St. Helena. 



