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RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 45
On the declivities sloping to the Shillicaio and
too steep for cultivation there are other trees of the
primeval forest which flower along with the Ama-
sisa, especially the Lupuna (Chorisia ventricosa], a
Bombaceous tree with prickly trunk swollen above
the base, producing abundance of large rose-
coloured flowers, and a tree of moderate growth
bearing large panicles of rather small white odoriferous
flowers (allied to Loganiaceae or
Gentianese).
Some two months later a low spreading Bauhinia,
abundant on the rocky margin of the stream,
appears every morning sprinkled with large white
flowers resembling a Prince's feather in form.
I know not at what hour they open, but it is
certainly before daylight, as I always see them fully
expanded at earliest dawn. A Capparis which
often grows near it has large white inodorous
flowers which begin to open at sunset, and at
daybreak the stamens and petals are falling awa\ .
It flowers more or less all the year round, and tin-
Bauhinia does not go out of flower for full eii;ht
months. 1
Tarapoto is situated in a large pampa or plain
sufficient to render them inaccessible, it hangs them on the very points of tin
outermost twigs. All the species of troopial I have seen on the Amazon ami
Rio Negro show similar foresight in selecting a place where lo rear their
infant colonies; and the robber \\ln>, "I/serving no impediment from 1
ventures to climb to their eyrie finds to his cost that it i
large wasps' nest, or \>y hordes l
stinging ants.
1
[It is interesting to note ho\\ often Spruce mentions white flo
night-blooming, but these t\\o cases are especially interesting bccausi
opens in the evening, the other apparently during the da\\n.
night
This accords with the fact, communicated to me by
the Tring Museum, thai their moth-colld tor in South Americ
besides the species of moths ili.n come to light or to flo
principally up to about midnight, lie >
probably
an hour or .so before dawn till n<
moths are those which fertili early llo
and shrubs observed by Spruce. A. K. \\ .
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