Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

206 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
sinks over the knees in black, white, and red mud. A wood of
young larches may give you an idea of its appearance. I have
never seen anything which so much astonished me. I could
almost fancy myself in some primeval forest of Calamites, and if
some gigantic Saurian had suddenly appeared, crushing its way
among the succulent stems, my surprise could hardly have been
increased. I could find no fruit, so that whether it be terminal,
as in E. giganfei/m, or radical, as in E. fliiviatik, is still doubtful,
and for this reason I took no specimens at the time, though I
shall make a point of gathering it in any state.
Mount Tunguragua is nearly as fine a locality for ferns as the
forest of Canelos, but great difficulties attend its ascent. First,
there is the actual height, for Banos is but 5500 feet high, and
from thence to the snow-line (15,000 feet) is a great way to climb.
Then there is the want of water, for between Banos and Puela,
that is, for about five leagues along the northern base of the
mountain, all the ravines are dry. The streams that formerly
traversed them all became submerged when the great earthquake
of 1797 took place, and now run in subterranean courses, coming
out on the actual margin of the Pastasa, sometimes in considerable
volume. But the greatest obstruction to the ascent is the
dense, untracked, quasi-Amazonian forest, to penetrate which the
knife is needed at every step, and which extends to a height that
I have not yet exactly ascertained. I could not have believed,
unless I had seen it, that at 11,000 feet elevation on Tunguragua
there are laurels 70 feet high and 12 feet round.
I trust my collections will not disappoint your expectations ;
they do not, however, quite come up to mine, for I have suffered
much here from the cold, and especially from the sudden alternations
of burning heat to frosty cold, and I have consequently
been unable to do so much field-work as I could wish. Since
entering the Ecuador I have gathered forty-five species of Polypodium
(including Goniophlebium, etc.), all, with two or three
exceptions, different from what I gathered in Peru. They include
some very pretty things, especially in Polypodium proper. I have
also some pretty Asplenia ; but the species of this genus and
Diplazium give me more difficulty than any other to know what
are species and what varieties.
[The next letter to Mr. Bentham contains,
among other valuable botanical matter, an exceedingly
interesting estimate of the probable number
of species of plants now living in the great Amazon
valley, founded on his own observations. It is