258 SEARCH FOR C. OVATA. Chap. XV. 



sides of tho steep mountain, for several hours continuously ; 

 the footing consisting of decayed leaves and rotten trunks, 

 moss and ferns covering every tree, and all the vegetation 

 intensely humid. At a height of 750 feet above the river we 

 came to some trees of the heno-heno (Pimentelia gomphosia," 

 Wedd.), with its bright laurel-like leaves and minute cap- 

 sules ; the C. pubeseens, called by Martinez casearilla ama- 

 rilla, still only in bud, which was very abundant ; and 

 large trees of the morada naranjada (C. ovata, var. a vul- 

 garis, Wedd.). Near this place a troop of about twenty 

 monkeys went chattering along the tops of the trees, and 

 while I was looking at them a huge black hornet rushed up 

 out of the moss and stung me on the chin. These savage 

 creatures make their nests under the earth, and are called 

 huancoyru. 



After a long and wearisome but fruitless search for young- 

 plants of the zamha morada (the /3 rufinervis variety of C. 

 ovata) in these excessively damp forests, we began the 

 descent again. Nothing stiiick me so much as the extraordi- 

 nary variety of forms and shapes in which nature works in 

 these tropical forests. One is amazed to see enormous trees 

 with their gigantic roots separating at least twenty feet above 

 the ground, and forming perfect Gothic arches. In one place 

 a giant of the forest had grown on the edge of a ridge of rock, 

 and the roots had combined with the stone to form a spacious 

 vaulted cave large enough to hold ten men comfortably. 

 Beautiful variegated leaves of Colocasice, and a scarlet-flowered 

 Justitia, with bright purple leaves, imited with a profusion of 

 ferns to ornament the opening, while some tree-ferns, and a 

 chinilla, the most slender and elegant of the palms of the 

 forest, guarded the entrance. Kays of the sun struggled 

 through a network of bamboos . on an opposite bank, and 



' I brouglit home a buncli of the capsules, now in the herbarium at Kew. 



