o Grass of the Tribe o/"Banibiiseœ, 8^c. 559 



twenty miles we observed a large chain of mountains, which trended N.N.E. 

 and S.S.W. ; and among this chain a high mountain was pointed out to us, 

 which they called Mashiatti, and where we were told that these reeds were 

 growing ; but as we were given to understand that we should find them like- 

 wise at Marawacca, and as Mashiatti was entirely out of our road, we did not 

 visit it. It was consequently only in the middle of February, and after we had 

 crossed the river Parima, that my wish of becoming acquainted with that 

 curious plant was accomplished. 



The Maiongcong and Guinau Indians, whom the Spaniards call Maquiri- 

 tares, conducted us to that part of Marawacca (a high mountain which ter- 

 minates in an almost perpendicular wall of sandstone) where the plant grows. 

 It is a day's journey from a Maiongcong settlement on the river Cuyaca, from 

 wlience the hospitable and good-natured savages showed us the beaten track. 

 After having ascended Mount Marawacca, to about 3500 feet above the Indian 

 village, the traveller follows a small mountain-stream, on the banks of which 

 the Curas or Curatas, as the Indians call these reeds, grow in dense tufts. 

 They form generally clusters of from fifty to one liundred, which are pushed 

 forth, as in many other species of that tribe, by a strong, jointed, subterranean 

 rootstock. The stem rises straight from tlie rhizoma, without a knot, and 

 of equal thickness, frequently to a height of sixteen feet, where the first disse- 

 piment stretches across the inside, and the first branchlets are formed. The 

 articulations then continue at regular intervals of about fifteen or eighteen 

 inches to a further height of from forty to fifty feet. The full-grown stem is at 

 the base an inch and a half in diameter, or nearly five inches in circumference. 

 It is of a bright green, perfectly smooth, and hollow insiile. The branchlets 

 surround the culm at the nodes in small bundles, and are arranged in a verticil- 

 late manner ; they are generally from three to four feet in length, very slender, 

 terete, and nodose ; the upper articulations two to three inches apart, and longer 

 than the first, vaginated ; the vagina split at the apex, persistent, striated, some- 

 what scabrous. The leaves are alternate, linear-lanceolate, of a bright green 

 above, glaucescent below, nervose, striated, the midrib prominent, marginated, 

 margin scabrous, acute ; from eight to nine inches long, and five and a half to 

 six lines broad, obliquely rounded at the base ; provided with a short petiole, 

 which is articulated to the vagina; ligulated ; iigula very short and pilose. 



