242 SOUTH AMEEICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. 



this zone are absolutely treeless, despite a superabundant rainfall. Thus the 

 volcanic uplands of the Quito and Riobamba basins have no trees except willows 

 {capuU) or wild cherries {rlianDnis hamboldtiana), fringing the river-banks. On the 

 sandy Riobamba plain nothing is seen except agaves, euphorbiae, Barbiry figs, 

 and other cactuses, besides a species of reed known by the Quichua name of si(js{g 

 {arundo nitida). 



Even far below the plateau, in the Guallabamba gorge, trees are absent, which 

 is to be attributed, not to the climate, but to the loose volcanic ground, where 

 the rain waters rapidly disappear. But forest growths recover their exuberance 

 and variety in the regions of more tenacious soil, on the eastern slopes of both 

 Cordilleras, and farther south on the Loja plateau, where the woodlands of the sea- 

 board are continuous across the Cordillera with those of the Amazons basin. Here 

 botanists have found the condumngo, an asclepias formerly supposed to be a specific 

 against cancer, and some rare species of orchids, which, thanks to the temperate 

 climate of the Andes, are more easily acclimatised in the European conservatories 

 than those of Brazil. On the seaboard vast spaces, lying to leeward of the moun- 

 tain ranges, and consequently cut off from the moist trade winds, remain arid and 

 unproductive, despite their naturally fertile soil. 



The poJijIepk, dwarf trees with twisted boughs and roots and birch -like bark, 

 which occur here and there on the slopes, r>inge far higher than the forest 

 growths ; André met one on Chimborazo at an altitude of 13,860 feet. In those 

 districts where the shrubs have been fired, they are invariably replaced by various 

 herbaceous plants {fitipa, andropogon, paspalmnm) comprised by the Indians under 

 the general name of ichn. Farther up nothing is seen except low, vivid green 

 growths, such as the woolly-leafed ciikitium, one variety of which {C. nivale) 

 flourishes in the very midst of the snows. Certain flowering plants reach the 

 neighbourhood of the snow-line, which is estimated at about 15,750 feet ; they 

 even occur as high as 16,200 feet, though nowhere presenting those brilliant hues 

 which are so admired in the flora of the European Alps. At an altitude of 18,500 

 feet Whymper still met patches of a lichen [lecanora siihfnsca), probably "the greatest 

 elevation at which anything appertaining to the vegetable kingdom has been found 

 in either of the Americas" (page 76). 



Fauna. 



Taken as a whole the Ecuadorean fauna differs in no respect from those of 

 the conterminous regions of Colombia and Peru. Southern species absent from 

 the northern Andes range as far as Ecuador, although the llama, "camel " of Peru, 

 reaches no farther north than Kiobamba. In most other districts it has been 

 replaced by the mule as a pack-animal. The condor hovers over the Quito 

 plateaux, as well as over the Peruvian and Bolivian mountains. But Humboldt 

 was mistaken in supposing that it soars above the loftiest summits of the Andes, 

 and that, by a remarkable power of adaptation to the environment, it finds itself 

 equally at home in the neighbourhood of the sea and in the upper aerial spaces, 



