292 
NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
CHAP. 
which the fertile fronds were shrivelled up, having been in per- 
fection in the wet season, and two or three Hymenophylla in the 
same state ; so that if we make allowance for the few species 
which must have eluded my search, we may safely assume that 
I left at least 20 ferns ungathered, and the whole number may 
be taken at 140, that is, of ferns existing in a space not more 
than four miles long by three-quarters of a mile broad, or of three 
square miles. Perhaps few parts of the world possess so many 
species of ferns growing naturally in so small an area. 
The five species of tree-ferns gathered in fruit all grow in 
tolerable abundance, and one of them, an Alsophila, with a trunk 
40 feet high, large, stout, pale green fronds, and exactly opposij:e 
pinncG, is perhaps the handsomest tree-fern I ever saw. The 
Cyathea has almost constantly, below its own fronds, a supple- 
mentary crown of numerous deep green, widely arched, sterile 
fronds of a Lomaria, among which spring vertically the slender, 
pectinate, fertile fronds ; while the trunk is enveloped in a 
continuous sheath of the soft, pale, but clear green foliage of 
Bartramia viridissima^ C. Miill. ; the whole forming one of those 
lovely pictures which only those who seek out Nature in her 
remotest recesses are privileged to see. 
Musci 
This Bartramia was in good fruit, but the great part of the 
mosses had fruited during the rainy season, and the number of 
species was by no means so great as one would have supposed, 
to see the dense festoons of moss depending from old trees. 
They are in main part composed of two or three species, which 
modern botanists would refer to Trachypus, of as many Meteoria, 
and of a Frullania. Rhacopihiiii tomentosinji is frequent, as it is 
all through the roots of the Cordillera, on both sides ; and 
another Rhacopilum (7?. polythrincui??i^ MSS.) grows in some 
abundance. Orthotricha, common enough in the region of the 
Hill Barks, scarcely descend below 6000 feet, and at Limon their 
place is supplied by Macromitrium and Schlotheimia, both very 
sparingly represented. Hookerice, so abundant and ornamental 
on the eastern slope of the Cordillera, in the same latitude and 
altitude, barely exist at Limon. 
Hepatic/E 
Hepatic^ are rather more varied than mosses, and the genus 
Plagiochila, especially, is well represented. Notwithstanding the 
vast variety of Plagiochilse I have gathered on the Amazon and 
on the eastern side of the Andes of Peru and Quito, I still found 
new forms at Limon. The favourite site of this genus is in the 
warm and temperate region of the Andes. Lower down the 
