Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 
23 
conducted to a valley just below the snow on the Paramo del 
Quindio, the peak whose name has also been adopted for the 
whole group of these mountains. Here camp was placed in the 
midst of the beautiful alpine “frailejones.” We piled the leaves 
of the “frailejones” over the floor, thus forming a deep, soft, 
aromatically fragrant mattress, and the stems covered with old 
leaves we placed behind our tent to form a most effcient wind-break. 
Having secured every side of the tent in this manner, we were com¬ 
fortably warm although the temperature each night was freezing 
on the paramo, and one night snow fell. 
I had once before been on Ruiz, another peak of the Quindio 
group some forty miles north of our present base, so I knew what 
would be some of our trophies on the paramo here. The golden 
“frailejon” is the largest species of Espeletia known to me, and its 
massive stems, sometimes eight or ten feet tall, when grouped, 
form groves of a strange peculiar majesty. The leaves are clothed 
with soft wooly hairs, silvery or golden-yellow; indeed, the richest 
hue of gold that I have ever seen is that of the hairs of certain 
of these “ frailejon ” leaves. Other plants, conspicuously clothed 
with wooly coats, were a species of lupine, with long, very white 
hairs and, covered with the densest and most felt-like hair coat 
that I have ever seen on any plant and the white “ frailejon,” a 
species of Culcitium, another genus of the sunflower family. All 
plants of the paramo must withstand cold, and accordingly we find 
developed various interesting means of protection. A wooly 
coat of hairs is the simplest. A low growth along the ground is a 
frequent adaptation, many plants growing in wide cushions from 
which only leaves or short flower shoots ascend an inch, or 
a fraction of an inch, into the air. A species of lupine grew mat¬ 
ted on the ground; but denser colonies were formed by an alpine 
plantain and by certain Composites and Monocotyledons. One 
of the last, growing at the edge of pools in the valley's head, forms 
rounded coralline cushions of almost rock-like hardness and with 
outline as precise as any pattern. Although its short leaves pro¬ 
jected vertically and one walked on the leaf-tips, these were so rigid 
and strong that no impress from the human foot could be detected. 
We collected as full a series as possible of these alpine plants, and 
it is believed that by combining the result of this visit with that 
of the previous visit to Ruiz, our herbaria have now a fair repre- 
