158 A YEAR OF COSTA RICAN NATURAL HISTORY 



one side. There was a post office and telegraph station, a 

 neat though small one-story wooden schoolhouse and a 

 church consisting of a galvanized iron roof supported on 

 wooden uprights, two tower roofs likewise supported in front, 

 no walls to towers or to "nave" except at the back of the 

 "chancel," and a plain board-walled diminutive "arm" of 

 a "transept" on each side. The wooden pulpit was in full 

 view from the road and the cows wandered to its steps, 

 nibbling at the sod. 



Behind Mr, Lankester's house, that is, south and south- 

 east, the chief road led to Peiia Blanca. The path we usually 

 followed led successively through a coffee field, a potrero 

 with some deserted houses, and then into a second potrero 

 growing up again into woods. This clearing was bordered 

 by thick tall timber and through it ran a charming brook, a 

 branch of the Sordi, which was often beautifully shaded 

 and full of rocks and deep nooks. It seemed a highly favor- 

 able place for dragonflies of certain kinds, but we saw almost 

 none at all. Here in fruit were many trees of "Vainilla" 

 Cassia spectabilis which we had previously known only in 

 flower, at Alajuela. The fruits are slender pods some twelve 

 inches long, packed with numerous close-set beans flattened 

 against each other like gum-drops. Many composites were 

 also blooming in this potrero. A curious and conspicuous 

 plant had fruits about an inch long of a deep purple-black, 

 borne on vividly red, fleshy receptacles two to three inches 

 in length. There were numerous "Guacamayos," papa- 

 veraceous plants with large irregular leaves and a big con- 

 spicuous fruit cluster which hangs lopsidedly out of the apex 

 of the plant. Croton trees were abundant, both xalapejisis 

 and gossypiifolius. 



The main road to Peiia Blanca ran up the valley of the 

 Naranjo, of which the Sordi is a tributary. There was 

 much swamp land in this valley bottom, which was perhaps 



