12 THE CHINCHONA REGION. Chap. I. 



the Peruvian forests, on the eastern slopes of the Andes, of 

 Marcapata, Paucartambo, Santa Anna, Guanta, and Uchii- 

 bamba, to Huanuco and Huamalies, where the grey bark is 

 found. It then continues tlirough Jaen, to the forests near 

 Loxa and Cuenca, and on the western slopes of Chimborazo. 

 It begins again in latitude 1° 51' N. at Almaguer, passes 

 through the province of Popayan, and along the slopes of the 

 Andes of Quindiu, until it reaches its extreme northern limit 

 on the wooded heights of Merida and Santa Martha. 



Humboldt remarks that, beyond these limits, the Silla de 

 Caraccas, and other mountains in the province of Cumana, 

 possess a suitable altitude and climate for the gro^vth of chin- 

 chona-trees, as well as some parts of Mexico, yet that they 

 have never been found either in Cumana or Mexico ; and he 

 suggests that this may be accounted for by the breaks which 

 take place in Venezuela on the one hand, and on the isthmus 

 of Panama on the other, where tracts of country of low 

 elevation intervene between the lofty mountains of Cumana 

 and Mexico and the chinchona region of the main Andes. 

 In these low districts the chinchona-trees may have encoun- 

 tered obstacles which prevented their proj)agation to the 

 northward : otherwise we might expect to find them in the 

 beautiful Mexican woods of Jalapa, whither the soil and 

 climate, and their usual companions the tree ferns and 

 melastomacese, would seem to invite them.^ 



Be this how it may, the ehinchona-plant has never been 

 found in any part of the world beyond the limits already 

 described. 



The chinchonas, when in good soil and under other favour- 

 able circumstances, become large forest trees ; on higher 

 elevations, and when crowded, and growing in rocky ground, 

 they frequently run up to great heights without a branch ; 



* Semanario de la Nueva Granada, p. 283. 



