76 
Botanical Reminiscences. 
handed as they had left. They told us that two of the 
hunters had only by a bold jump saved their lives from an 
attack of a rattlesnake, of which they observed several during 
the day ; we therefore became more careful during our 
rambles. 
Already the day before we had dispatched our Indians to 
make a passable track through the forest, up to the base of 
the gigantic stone wall ; this had been executed, and on the 
following morning, in company with a few Indians, I began 
the difficult ascent almost in darkness. The surprising 
strength of vegetation, and the entanglement of trees and 
creepers, allowed us to advance but slowly ; I never saw such 
a chaos of shrubs, trees, ferns, and creepers, standing close 
together, and their branches entwined. A humid vapor 
appeared here constantly held in suspension, and the rays of 
the sun are scarcely admitted through the thick canopy of 
foliage. Arums, Mosses, Lichens, Orchids, Jungermannias 
covered the trunks of the trees. The wearisome road led us 
over the graves of innumerable plants; humidity had changed 
everything into a mould, in which we often sank up to our 
knees. For a distance we had to walk over trees torn down by 
the storm, their trunks and big branches covered with lichens 
and mosses, so slippery as to cause us to slide almost at every 
step ; then, again, I should fall up to my armpits between a 
lot of branches and trunks, only to be extricated by the help 
of my companions. Again, over pointed rocks and craggy 
precipices, which we were forced to descend by means of 
lianas and ladders of roots, which presented great danger. 
Where, in consequence of a break in the forest, the sun was 
able to shine and to warm the immense black, dark green, 
slippery rocks, and where the smallest particle of humus had 
collected, you would see that Arums, Anthuriums, Gesnerias, 
Bromelias, Heliconias, Feperomice, Orchids, contested the place. 
Already for an hour we had pursued this dangerous and 
very fatiguing road, when, suddenly, in the middle of this 
labyrinth, I saw a large crimson- colored flower in the dis- 
tance ; agreeably surprised, I cleared the way to it to admire 
the new discovery; it was a suflruticose shrub, with pale 
green branches, and opposite long petioles, pale green acumi- 
nate leaves, which bore this magniflcent flower. Its want of 
scent was repaid by its beauty, and it proved to be a new 
GentianecB ; indeed, a new species of the very rare genus 
Leiothamnus. Her Majesty the late Queen Elizabeth gave 
