PLATEAU OF CAXAMA11CA. 269 



but the luxuriance of vegetation is such that* the younger 

 trees which are now resorted to, though only 6 inches in 

 diameter, often attain from 53 to 64 English feet in height. 

 This beautiful tree, which is adorned with leaves above 

 5 English inches long and 2 broad, growing in dense 

 woods, seems always to aspire to rise above its neighbours. 

 As its upper branches wave to and fro in the wind, their 

 red and shining foliage produces a strange and peculiar 

 effect recognisable from a great distance. The mean tem- 

 perature in the woods where the Cinchona condaminea is 

 found, ranges between 12^ and 15 Eeaumur (60.2 and 

 65.8 Fahrenheit), which are about the mean annual tem- 

 peratures of Florence and the Island of Madeira ; but the 

 extremes of heat and cold observed at these two stations of 

 the temperate zone are never felt around Loxa. Comparisons 

 between the climates of places, one of which is situated in an 

 elevated tropical plain, and the other in a higher parallel df 

 latitude, can be from their nature but little satisfactory. 



In'order to descend South-South-East from the mountain 

 knot of Loxa to the hot Valley of the Amazons, it is first 

 necessary to pass over the Paramos of Chulucanas, Guamani 

 and Yamoca, mountain wildernesses of a peculiar character 

 of which we have already spoken, and to which, in the 

 southern parts of the Andes, the name of Puna (a word 

 belonging to the Quichua language) is given. They mostly 

 rise above 9500 (10125 English) feet ; they are stormy, 

 often enveloped for days in dense mist, or visited by 

 violent and formidable showers of hail, consisting not 

 merely of hailstones of different spherical forms, usually a 



