1952] 



PLANT HUNTING IN ECUADOR 



5 



long haul). And the remaining Cholo runner in the Cutucu camp was ill and un- 

 able to carry a load out and inform Prieto of the situation. We had stayed longer 

 than expected and so our food supply was seriously depleted. The Jivaros had 

 not been having much luck with their hunting and I did not feel like asking them 

 to share. Apparently Patehi had sensed all this, although we had not discussed it. 



Early one morning he crossed over to our side and asked the ill man if he 

 could walk out if helped while crossing the rivers, The man was glad enough to 

 make a try of it, and so Patehi turned to me and indicated that I was to make the 

 specimens into a pack. He adjusted his long braids so as to be a pad for the 

 tump-line, swung it up, and the two of them went off down the trail. I estimated 

 that it would be three days at the least before he could return, but he was back 

 in half the time I had anticipated, and with a staggering load of yuca roots and 

 sweet potatoes from his own garden. He was scornful when I offered to pay him 

 either in money or in trade goods, but beamed knowingly when I later presented 

 his three wives with special lengths of trade cloth and a handful of trinkets and 

 fine-toothed combs. Nobility of spirit is neither a product of civilization nor a 

 character of any race; it is an individual trait, as likely to be found in a naked 

 savage as in a well-garbed saint. For healthy realism and true understanding, my 

 money would be on the naked savage. 



The Cutucu is a wild and tumbled range. Altimetric measurements placed the 

 pass to the east above base-:amp at 6,500 ft.; the adjacent tops went approxi- 

 mately 500 ft. higher. Therefore, as part of the general Andean orogenic system 

 it is not high, but has as rugged a terrain as any I encountered in Ecuador. Also 

 it has a feature I found nowhere else. As one approaches the central backbone of 

 the complex, the ridges become very sharp. One naturally would expect a lessen- 

 ing of the vegetation on these sharp, over-drained ridges. However, this is gen- 

 erally not the case because of the abundant precipitation. We worked in the 

 Cutucu from mid-November to mid-December, supposedly the "dry" season, but 

 fogs were a common feature, there was scarcely a day when there was not heavy 

 rain, and on several occasions there were actual cloudbursts. This constant mois- 

 ture leads to the development of heavy vegetation, even on the sharp, knife-edge 

 ridges. Quite often these were the only places to ascend, if one did not wish to 

 try working up the stream beds— sometimes hazardous because of the swift water 

 and large boulders. At times the mat of vegetation on the edges of these ridges 

 was actually T-shaped, flat on top and projecting laterally from the apex of the 

 ridge. In such places it was an easy matter to thrust one's leg through this mat 

 only to find it dangling in space; an unwary step too near the edge and a piece 

 could break loose, projecting one onto the steep and rocky slopes below. 



Perhaps I am prejudiced in favor of the Cutucu, but to me it stands out as the 

 floristically richest small range I have ever studied. This, in my opinion, is the 

 result of the high humidity, the geological background, and constant disturbance 

 of the vegetation. The amount of precipitation, even in the so-called "dry" sea- 

 son, has already been mentioned. As nearly as I could judge, the Cutucu is pri- 

 marily fashioned from sedimentary rocks, although some of the boulders appeared 

 to be partly metamorphic; of the sedimentaries, both sandstone and limestone are 

 present, the limestone at times quite fossiliferous. There also appear to be some 

 intrusive rocks. This jumble of variant rock materials produced sharp differences 

 in both chemical and physical characters of the substrate which provide a multi- 

 tude of micro-habitats. The disturbance is not man-made; the physiographically 

 youthful terrain is constantly undergoing erosion and is subject to both earth and 

 rock slides, so that one is constantly encountering stretches running the gamut 

 from raw talus to stabilized forest. The sharp ridges offer other variant habitats, 



