Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

o 64
NOTES OF A BOTANIST
few indeed have been
their flowers and fruits, very
infested by caterpillars. A tall Leguminous (tree or
would sometimes have
liana) or Bombaceous species
caterpillars on it more ; rarely a Laurel or a Nut-
but a Fig or a Guttifer never. A vast number
meg ;
of trees and lianas of all sizes are, indeed, excluded
from serving as food to caterpillars by their strongly
resinous or else acrid and poisonous juices, and
many more on account of their hard, leathery leaves,
which are untouched except, rarely, by minute
in the
caterpillars that eat themselves parenchyma.
galleries
Of plants which afford food for caterpillars,
to
Leguminosae hold decidedly the first place ; next
these rank Mallow-like plants (including Malvaceae
proper, Sterculiaceae, Biittneriaceae, and Tiliaceae) ;
then Melastomaceae and Solanaceae. Caterpillars
armed with stinging hairs seem peculiarly partial to
Leguminosse, as I know to my cost, the bushy Inga
trees in some parts being scarcely approachable
when with flowers and young leaves. In the neighbourhood
of Guayaquil children that stray under the
Tamarind trees sometimes get severely stung by the
hairy caterpillars that drop
on them from the trees.
Other orders of plants on which I have en-
countered caterpillars are chiefly the following :
on
: Among Endogens
Aroids on all rather rarely ;
Grasses, Sedges, Palms, and
Scitamineae and
Musaceae more frequently. Among Exogens :
Euphorbiaceae (principally
on those with aromatic
foliage); Samydeae; Bixaceae; ; Vochysiaceae
daceae ; (few) Malpighiaceae ; Ochnacese
Anonaceae and Myristiceae
; (rarely) Anacardiaceae ;
Sapin-
(on very
young leaves only, the adult foliage being hard and