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IN THE CINCHONA FORESTS 301
notable for its extensive orangeries, which produce
the finest fruit in Ecuador. Here the valley opens
out wide, and by an almost imperceptible descent
mingles gradually with the plain. The river
became muddy, still, and tolerably deep. The
vegetation is now unmistakably tropical, and there
is as noble forest around Pozuelos as I have anywhere
seen. Palms are far less varied than on the
Amazon, but the Attalea above mentioned grows
immensely tall and stout. An Astrocaryum, whose
clustered trunks are perfect chevaux dc frisc, from
the long flat prickles with which they are beset, is
very frequent. Mimosse are abundant, and so are
papilionaceous
Ecastaphyllum.
twiners, among
The beautiful
which I noted an
arborescent Passiflora
(Astrophea) grows far larger than at San
Antonio, and I could not help now and then
stopping my horse under its stems, which here and
there bent gracefully over our path, to admire the
large pendulous glaucous
of white flowers ;
but
leaves and the clusters
I sought in vain for ripe-
berries. In marshy places there are beds of rank
ferns, and in pools an Eichhornia and a Pontederia.
The common weeds of hot countries begin to
appear, such as Asclcpias cnrassai'ica and Tiaridium
/iK/icinu, the latter of which I had not seen since
leaving
the Amazon.
[After much delay at !'>< Ic^as, waiting lor
the small steamer, (iiiayaquil was reached on
October 6, and a portion of the ripe seed sent, as
instructed, to Jamaica. The young plants were
not ready for transmission till the end of November,
when Spruce returned up the river to Aguacatal,