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due to diversity of habitat, for on one side of the city runs the 
Guayas, a magnificent river which drains the western ranges of 
the Andes of Ecuador, while on the other side a great salt lagoon, 
bordered with all kinds of saline vegetation, pushes up from the 
ocean. Strange to say, through the bushes of these salt marshes 
clambers a very remarkable cactus belonging to the genus 
Hylocereius. Then too, a little farther away from the city is an 
arid belt, where grow thorn-bushes and cacti, and here we dis- 
covered one or more arborescent cacti. 
From Guayaquil we went by train to the little town of Huigra, 
located about 70 miles from the coast at an elevation of 4,000 
feet above the sea. The town is built on the banks of the Chan- 
chan River and nestles in the narrow valley with high mountains 
reaching up on each side of it. Huigra, being the headquarters 
of the Guayaquil and Quito Railway Company, forms a most 
suitable base from which to carry on botanical explorations. 
It has a small comfortable hotel which can be used for headquar- 
ters and from which excursions can be made by foot or by train 
up and down the railroad or by horseback into the high mountains 
either to the north or south. In a few hours one can pass from 
the semiarid valley about Huigra into the fog-covered forests 
where the trees are festooned with long masses of delicate mosses 
and liverworts, with epiphytic ericaceous plants and with climb- 
ing species of Oxalis, Viola and Solanum. Or one can drop 
down the Chanchan Valley by gravity on a hand-car and, 
in a few hours, be in the midst of a luxuriant tropical vegetation, 
surrounded by tall graceful palms and bamboos where the moist 
banks are covered with delicate ferns and beautiful purple- 
flowered orchids (Bletia sp.). In this wet forest is found the red- 
bark or cinchona tree which is one of the sources of quinine 
(Fig. 1, plate 235). In this same region, too, were found a little- 
known Zamia (Z. Lindenii), an arborescent ivory-palm, and a 
Marcgravia with curious bottle-shaped bracts on the flower 
stalks, each used as a home by a mountain bee. 
We used Huigra for our base for the entire season, making 
side trips from time to time, once going to Ambato, which is 
located between the two high ranges of the Andes. This is 
