34 NOTES OF A NATURALIST. 



tropical forest, I could in so hurried a peep make out 

 very little. I owe one beautiful species, hitherto un- 



described, to my friend W , who, having wandered 



in another direction, spied the scarlet flowers of the 

 epiphyte, which I have named Anthopterus Wardii, 

 on the trunk of a tree, which was promptly climbed 

 by the active negro who had accompanied him.* 



Too soon came the summons of the steam-whistle. 

 As we called on our way at the office of the Pacific 

 Company's agent, we were shown a number of the 

 finer sort of so-called Panama hats, which are chiefly 

 made on this part of the coast. Even on the spot 

 they are expensive articles, a hundred dollars not 

 being considered an unreasonable price for one of the 

 better sort. 



Some writers of high authority on geographical 

 botany have held that the most marked division of 

 tTie flora of tropical South America is that between 

 the regions lying east and west of the Andes. It 

 would be the extreme of rashness for one who has 

 seen so little as I have done of the vegetation of 

 a few scattered points in so vast a region to attempt 

 to draw conclusions from his own observations ; but, 

 on the oth«r hand, writers in Europe, even though so 

 learned and so careful as Grisebach and Engler, are 

 under the great disadvantage that the materials avail- 

 able, whether in botanical works or in herbaria, are 

 generally incomplete as regards localities. How is it 

 possible to form any clear picture of the flora of a 

 special district when so large a proportion of the 



* For a list of the plants collected here, see a paper in the Journal 

 of the Linnaan Society, vol. xxiL 



