Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 289
Asclepiadea, 4. All milky twiners. This order, like the preceding,
has its principal seat in the hot region, but is by no means
confined to it, for two or three slender Cynoctona are frequent
in the cooler parts of the Andes, trailing over the hedges of Cactus
and Agave.
Solanacec?, 5. In this order, also, my collection contains a
very small proportion of the species existing in the Red Bark
woods. Shrubby Solana are almost endless, and two species rise
to trees. Two or three species of Cestrum also occur as slender
trees.
Cordiacece, i. A Cordia, a stout sarmentose species, which
threads about among the trees up to a considerable height, though
it never actually twines.
Convolvulacea. This order seems confined to a couple of
Iponiceae, both occurring very rarely.
Myrsineu-', 2 (or perhaps 3). The most remarkable of all the
plants I gathered is a Myrsinea, though, as it grows only at
5000
from
to 7000 feet, it barely touches the frontier of the Red Bark
region. It is an arbuscle of 8 to 10 feet, bearing a coma of large,
long, deep green coriaceous leaves, so that without flower it has
quite the aspect of a Grias; but above the leaves there is a mass,
the size of the human head, of densely packed panicles and
minute flowers, all of the same deep red colour. I have not
previously seen any Myrsinea at all resembling
it in habit ; but
I have examined it sufficiently to state with confidence that it
belongs to this order, although probably to an undescribed genus.
Labiatie, i. Besides the solitary species gathered, there exist
two species of Hyptis, one of them apparently //. Sihirco;
but this order is always scantily represented in the forest. In
cane-fields at San Antonio I saw a Stachys with small white
flowers.
Verbenacd?, 2. One of them a prickly
threading among the bushes up to iS feet in height
suffruticose Lantana.
: the other a
woody twiner, with pretty waxy flowers, ilesh-co|nmvd externally,
but the limb purple within; it is prohabK ;i
Citharexylon, allied
to ('. scandenS) llenth. (gathered on the Uaupcs). though the
h:ibit is
totally different from the arborescent ( 'ithare\\ la \\ Inch
.urow in the cooler parts of the Amies. A Duranta uas noted at
San Antonio. A Stachytarpheta, which I t;ike to be S. Jamaicensis,
and is known in Peru and Ecuador as " Verbena," seems t,. |,.llo\\
the steps of
10,000 feet.
man in the Cordillera from near
At Limon it exists sparingly as a
the plain up
\\eed. Anol
to
species of the same genus, with very slender spikes and. small
lilac ilowers, abounds in open places.
Gesneracea, 17. The abundance r this lamih i^ one of the
distinctive features of the Red Bark woods. One group, comprising
( several speciex has a woody rhi/omc. r, , ping up the trees, and
VOL. II U