FLORA OF GUIANA. 



29 



whole flora ; but tbeir majestic appearance, making them conspicuous objects 

 at a distance, gives them a seeming importance far beyond their mere numbers. 



The members of the Venezuelan and Colombian zones, which are not found 

 in Guiana, are maiuly the Alpine plants flourishing in the Andes at altitudes 

 much higher than the summits of the Pacaraima and Ca'irrit ranges. At least 

 200 varieties of tree ferns grow on the slopes at heights of over 3,000 feet; in a 

 few days Richard Schomburgk discovered as many as 93 different members of 

 this family in the Roraima district, which has been called the "Eldorado of 

 botanists." Here the slightest difference of relief, aspect, or soil is marked by 

 fresh forms. The befaria (bejaria), or " rose of the Andes," and a plant allied to 



Fig. 9. — Forests and Savannas of Guiana. 

 Scale 1 : 13,000,000. 



_» 250 Miles. 



the cinchona, are also represented on the slopes of Rorairaa. On the banks of 

 the Essequibo the Indians make use of arrows obtained from a poisonous bamboo, 

 which produces the same effect as the curare.* 



The superb Victoria regia, discovered in 1837, in the Berbice River, British 

 Guiana, and afterwards met in many other watercourses in the Amazonian region, 

 is an example of the marvellous beauty that efflorescence may assume in equato- 

 rial America. In some places the surface of the lakes almost entirely .disappears 

 under a carpet of enormous leaves and tufts of white petals intermingled with 

 other flowers, blue, pink, or yellow, and with quaking grasses. Under certain 

 favourable atmospheric conditions, the flowers of a nymphaeacea abounding in 

 these fresh-water basins shine with the calm glow of anight light, much less vivid 

 * C. B. Brown, Ca)wc and Cump Life in British Guiana. 



