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xxvin HIDDEN TREASURE 499
The parts of the map covered with forest are
represented by scattered trees, among which the
following forms are easily recognisable :
No. i is the Wax palm (Palma de Ramos of the
Quitonians ;
Ceroxylon
andicola, H. et B.), which
I have seen on Tunguragua up to 10,000 feet.
Nos. 2 and 3 are Tree-ferns (Helechos) the former
a Cyathea, whose trunk (sometimes 40 feet high)
is much used for uprights in houses the latter an
;
Alsophila with a prickly trunk, very frequent in
the forest of Canelos about the Rio Verde. No. 4
is the Aliso {Betula acuminata> Kunth), one of the
most abundant trees in the Ouitonian Andes ;
*"/
it
descends on the beaches of the Pastasa to near 4000
feet, and ascends on the paramos of Tunguragua to
12,000. But there is one tree (represented thus ^=),
occupying on the map a considerable range of
altitude, which I cannot make out, unless it be
a Podocarpus, of which I saw a single tree on
Mount Abitagua, though a species of the same
genus is abundant at the upper limit of the forest
in some parts of the Western Cordillera. A large
spreading tree is figured here and there in the
forest of Canelos which may be the Tocte a true
\Valnut (Juglans), with an edible fruit rather larger
than that of the European species. The remaining
trees represented, especially those towards the
upper limit of the forest, are mostly too much alike
to admit of the supposition that any particular
species was intended by them.