Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

3i6
NOTES OF A BOTANIST
from a good way up the various rivers, and there are many wild
fruits. The latter include two "cherries"; one of them is so like
the fruit of Averrhoa Bilimbi (Oxalideae) in appearance that I did
not think it could be anything else. The tree abounds at Daule
and is now in flower it is a ; Combretacea, allied to Terminalia !
The other cherry is a Malpighiacea very different from the
Bunchosias or "Friar's plums," and probably a Byrsonima. Two
"plums" are surely species of Spondias. A drupe, called Pechiche,
the size of a large cherry, but black, and with a mawkish sweet
taste, though excellent for preserve, is the fruit of a Vitex. There
are also many Sapotaceous fruits not seen elsewhere. I hope to
make them all out and to send specimens of the fruits in spirit.
I have unfortunately very little strength left for work of any kind,
and the squalls that come on suddenly when the sun is hot and
penetrate the chinks of these bamboo walls make me feel some-
"
times as "roomackity as I did in the Sierra. Piura would have
been the place for me they say the most obstinate rheumatisms
can't withstand the climate of Piura. But I do not like the idea
of living in the midst of a desert.
I was beginning to work a mon ordinaire when I had the
misfortune to scald my right foot severely, and had to endure a
tedious vesication and afterwards a painful ulceration. Eighteen
days of it stretched in a hammock, and unable to tread the
ground. I did not mind the pain so much as the lost time.
To Mr. John Teasdale
GUAYAQUIL, June 22,
1 86 1 .
... It is singular that the greatest range of
temperature occurs here in the summer or dry
season, while in the wet season it is more equable
but more oppressive.
We are now entering on the
summer, and it is surprising how rapidly the water
and mud dry up off the savannas ;
for
no more
rain falls, and we begin to have strong westerly
breezes, continuing sometimes through the night.
Guayaquil is not unhealthy from June to January,
and if they had built the city lower down the Gulf
it might have been healthy all the year round.
The island of Puna, where Pizarro first landed, is