Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

264 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
Pastasa in which I saw, not without surprise, a bed of the largeleaved
Rumex, which is frequent in similar situations, at from
8000 to 9000 feet. The Arenal consists of sand and fine gravel
of a pale yellow colour. In one place the road, for a considerable
distance, resembles a broad, smooth gravel-walk in England, so
that the only bit of really good road in Ecuador has been made
by nature's hand on the crest of the Andes. The vegetation is
limited to scattered tufts, or rather hillocks, of a Valeriana, a
Viola, an Achyrophorus, a Werneria, a Plantago, a Geranium, a
a pretty silky-leaved Astragalus, and the elegant Sicfa
is, all of which (save the Astragalus) have rigid leaves
in the characteristic rosettes of super-alpine vegetation, and send
enormously thick roots deep down into the loose soil, although
even these do not secure them from being frequently torn up by
the violent winds and storms that sweep over them. My attention
wr as so much taken up with these interesting plants, and with the
immense mass of snow on our right, and in tracing the downward
course of ancient lava-streams, which are as visible on Chimborazo
as on Cotopaxi and Tunguragua, that I scarcely felt the wind,
which swept us along like a gale at sea, and occasionally lifted
small fragments of gravel and hurled them at us. It is scarcely
necessary to state that the wind is here always easterly through
the day, getting up strong generally about 10 A.M., and rarely con-
tinuing to blow with equal force through the night and following
morning. Now and then it veers for a moment, and gives the
traveller a side blow, which, were he not wary, might unhorse
him.
\Ve had left winter behind us on the eastern side of the Cordillera,
and on our first day's journey, as we looked down the
deep valley of the Pastasa, we saw a mantle of dense cloud and
rain spread over the forest of Canelos. Even the eastern side of
Sanancajas was wet and muddy, but after passing Chuquipogyo
the road became nearly dry, and, on the western side of the
Cordillera, it was even inconveniently dusty. In the direction of
the Pacific not a cloud was visible, though the great distance and
the hazy horizon prevented our actually seeing the ocean. So
abrupt is the transition from the rainy season, which prevails on
the eastern side of the Cordillera simultaneously with the dryseason
on the western.
The Arenal must be near a league across. As we descended
from it the whole mountain side became covered with flowers, and
nowhere have I seen alpine vegetation in such perfect state.
Gcntiana ccniua, with its large pendulous red flowers, formed
large patches, and was accompanied by three other species of the
same genus, with purple and blue flowers, by Drabas, and other
alpines. Still descending, the true alpines began to be mixed
with half shrubby Fuchsia;, Calceolaria?, Eupatoria, etc. Even