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CHAP, xvi RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 99
The ridges and peaks are of white sandstone, as
are those of the Andarra farther up the river.
Both are very bare of vegetation, being burnt
almost every year and overrun with the common
fern Pteris caudata. The ascent to Potrela up the
rocky valley of the Cuchi-yacu is, however, through
luxuriant forest especially rich in ferns and mosses.
To conclude this sketch of the Tarapoto district
investigated by Spruce, I will give a few passages
translated from his "Precis d'un Voyage" pub-
lished in the Revue Bryologique for 1886 :
" The first thing that strikes the eye of the
botanist at Tarapoto is the abundance of ferns.
These plants are by preference, as we know, either
maritime or subalpine. On the hills of Brazil a
tolerably large number of species are found, but in
the interior of the continent and in the great plain
of the Amazon valley, although ferns are not
wanting, yet the species are never numerous and
several of them
even up to the
repeat themselves at
roots of the Andes.
every
One
step
may
therefore judge of the riches of the Eastern
Cordillera of Peru in ferns by the fact that there,
within a circle less than fifty miles in diameter,
the author found 250 species
of ferns
allies, of which many were new, especiall
the tree-ferns."
Among the most interesting plants
region, next to the ferns, may
Rubiace:e, of which Spruce collected 98 specie
small number of these were already known throu
the researches of Ruiz and Pavon, Poeppig
Matthews, but the majority
" Precis " then continues :
in this