Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

132 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP, xvn
Memoir on the Equatorial American Palms. I
here quote the incident :-
" On my voyage up the Huallaga in May 1855,
I gathered one morning some fully formed fruits of
Yarina, and as they were infested by stinging ants,
I laid them near the fire, where our breakfast was
being cooked, to disperse the ants, and then plunged
into the forest in quest of other objects. During
my absence the Indians, not I knowing wanted to
preserve the fruits, struck their cutlasses into them,
and finding the seeds still tender enough to be
eaten, munched them all up and thus destroyed my
I specimens. never again saw the Yarina in good
condition, except when I and my attendants were
already laden with specimens of other plants."
Two species very closely allied (Pkytelep/ias
macrocarpa and P. microcarpa) are spread over the
Eastern Andes, and Spruce described another
species (P. equatorialis] from the Western Andes
of Ecuador, which differs in having a trunk some-
times reaching 20 feet high. The leaves, of a fine
deep green colour, are from 30 to 40 feet long.
The plate here given is from a photograph taken
on the river Ucayali.]