THE FERN BULLETIN 



113 



alize that it would require a day's journey to reach 

 them. 



At a certain point on the trail, one of the negroes 

 indicated the place where we should leave it in our 

 search for the fern and here all unnecessary baggage 

 was left, for we were now to plunge into the un- 

 broken "bush." After our leader we went, in a wild 

 scramble to keep up with the rest of the party; down 

 preciptous slopes, up craggy heights to ridges so high, 

 so narrow, and so uneven that if they had not been 

 deeply overgrown with vegetation, no one would have 

 thought of traversing them erect. Here and there 

 through the trees we got glimpses of the bottoms of 

 narrow valleys far below, but the danger of falling was 

 not great because of the dense forest that everywhere 

 clothed the cliffs. 



In the more level spots we had time to note the 

 plants more at length. This was an excellent example 

 of a tropical rain forest and the trunks of the trees 

 were almost hidden by dense growths of mosses and 

 liverworts in which grew great numbers of small 

 ferns, orchids and other epiphytes. Many of these 

 plants were unknown to science and it was quite a new 

 sensation, after the ado that is sometimes made over 

 some single species, to look about and realize that right 

 at hand were no doubt dozens of absolutely new and 

 undescribed species. As a pleasing proof of this fact, 

 I found upon my return that I had found a new species 

 of Asplenium which has since been named for me. 



A little further on we found the Lonchitis. It was 

 growing in a "hanging sphagnum bog" which in itself 

 was almost as much of a curiosity as was the fern. The 

 orthodox sphagnum bog is well known to be a level 

 boggy stretch covered with peat moss or sphagnum, 



