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XXI AMBATO 261
To Sir William Hooker
AMBATO, March 12, 1860.
I have succeeded in hiring the forests producing
the Cascarilla roja after about ten times as much
correspondence as would have been necessary in
any civilised country, and I am now getting together
a staff of workmen (no easy task in these revolu-
tionary times)
with which to enter the forest as soon
as the rains abate. I am also in treaty with the
owners of the woods near Loja which produce the
Cinchona condaminea ;
but
as this species seems to
flower and fruit exactly at the same time as the
Cascarilla roja, and the localities of the two species
are fifteen clays' journey apart (under the most
favourable circumstances), it is plainly impossible
that I can see with my own eyes the seeds of both
species gathered, which is the only way
of having the right sort. . . .
to be sure
REPORT OX THE EXPEDITION TO PROCURE SHEDS
A XI) PLANTS OF THE CINCHONA SUCCIRl'HK /
OR RED I'.ARK TREE
Towards the end of the year 1859, I was entrusted by Her
Majesty's Secretary of State for India with a commission to procure
seeds and plants of the Red P>ark tree, and I
proceeded to
take the necessary steps for entering on its
Within the aMvttaincd limits of the true Red Hark it exists (or
rather existed up to a recent period) in all the valleys of the
Andes which debouch into the Guayaquilian plain. Many years
ago it was obtained in lar^e i|ua:ititics in the valley of Alausi,
below an Indian hamlet called Einje, on the northern side of the
Chanchan (nearly opposite to Puma-ccha, which is on the
southern side of the same stream), but it has IODL; been c\hau-t< d
there.