Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 101
1094 species of flowering plants and ferns, to
which must be added several hundred species
of mosses and Hepaticae his favourite groups
which here for the first time formed an important
part of the vegetation. It must be remembered
that this by no means affords any near approach
to the whole flora of the Maynensian Andes (as he
termed the district of which Tarapoto formed the
centre), because, both by inclination and necessity,
he limited his collections as much as possible to
species which he had not met with before, and
especially to such as
European
he believed to be unknown to
botanists. We know from his Journals
that often he could not possibly collect all he saw,
especially among the forest trees, and that he was
accustomed often to leave ungathered many new
species in favour of others which he believed to
constitute new genera. These Tarapoto plants were
the result of about eighteen months' collecting ;
for,
although he resided there a year and three-quarters,
at least three months were lost by illness and in
the preparations for his journey to the Ecuadorean
Andes.]