Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

IN THE ECUADOREAX ANDES 205
great distance from it), which has been my huntingground
for the last seven months. Though so
near, it would seem that a great proportion of the
plants
are distinct. . . .
At the foot of" Tunguragua, in dripping situations, I found a
small Polypodium creeping on branches which has the fronds
deeply
sinuated so as to resemble a narrow oak-leaf. All the
fronds are fertile, and I take it to be nothing more than a variety
of a Marginaria with linear lanceolate fronds that grows near.
A short time ago I found in a strip of forest by the Pastasa,
about 10 miles below Baiios, a very strange little fern with compound
fleshy fronds, looking not unlike one of the small Asplenia,
but completely different from that genus and its allies. The sori,
immersed in the margin of the frond, recall those of some
Davalliae, in which genus, however, the structure of the receptacles
seems essentially distinct. I enclose a small specimen, and if the
fern be really new and you would like to describe it, I will send
you the largest plant
I have, which is about three times the si/e
of this one. Unfortunately, I could find the fern on only a single
tree, though I spent two hours in searching the neighbouring
1
trees, and my stock of it is rather small.
From my letters to Mr. Bentham you
will have learnt h\\
much I suffered in the Montana of Canelos, on my way hither.
This name is popularly given to the forest from near Jiarios. where
the natural pastures begin, at the actual foot of the Cordillera, to
C'anelos on the Bombonasa. It is the finest ground for Cryptogam
ia I have ever seen, but when I passed it through with
Indians I was obliged to lighten my cargoes by giving and throwing
away whatever I could best spare, so that I could bring no
plants along save a few mosses. . . . One striking feature among
the ferns was the number of sarmentose, or even actually climb-
ing, species of various genera. On the Bombonasa a true- S
ginella climbs into the trees to the height of 30
feet, and the
twining caudex sends off fronds 4 feet long; in some places it
forms impenetrable thickets. A handsome Marattia was a great
acquisition to me, as I bad not previously seen that genus grow
ing. Two small Asplenia. looking quite like Hymenophyllaj crepl
along the branches of shrubs by shady rivulets. But the most
remarkable plant in the forest of ('anelos is a gigantic- 1 . |iiisrtum.
20 feet high, and the stem nearly as thick as the \\rist ! ... It
extends for a distance of a mile on a plain bordering tin- 1'a-i
. but elevated some 200 feet ab ive it, where at every few steps one
1
It is Davallia l.inilii, Hook. . Sp. l-'il. I.
p. m;. .nic_vn lim