132 
NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. XVII 
Memoir on the Equatorial American Palms. I 
here quote the incident : — 
" On my voyage up the Huallaga in May 1855, 
I gathered one morning some fully formed fruits of 
Yarina, and as they were infested by stinging ants, 
I laid them near the fire, where our breakfast was 
being cooked, to disperse the ants, and then plunged 
into the forest in quest of other objects. During 
my absence the Indians, not knowing I wanted to 
preserve the fruits, struck their cutlasses into them, 
and finding the seeds still tender enough to be 
eaten, munched them all up and thus destroyed my 
specimens. I never again saw the Yarina in good 
condition, except when I and my attendants were 
already laden with specimens of other plants." 
Two species very closely allied (^Phytelephas 
macrocarpa and P. microcarpd) are spread over the 
Eastern Andes, and Spruce described another 
species i^P. eqitatorialis) from the Western Andes 
of Ecuador, which differs in having a trunk some- 
times reaching 20 feet high. The leaves, of a fine 
deep green colour, are from 30 to 40 feet long. 
The plate here given is from a photograph taken 
on the river Ucayali.] 
