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---continuation commentary #33b----

In the piles of stones that have split off the precipitous mountain-sides, you see bushes of Lacistema serrulatum, Solana and Pothomorphe grouped Lasiandra Fontanesiana by Sydenham Teast Edwards (The botanial register, London 1822. Thanks to www.meemelink.com with other Piperaceae and with Smilax, and here and there at the forest's edge a tree of Lasiandra Fontanesiana or of other prettily flowering Melastomaceae. Among the taller trees of the forest we note Carpotroche brasiliensis, known to the inhabitants as Papo d'anjo, several slender Laurineae with extremely thick foliage, and Cecropia adenopus (Ambay Pump-wood), which is so called on account of the equal cushion of petioles on each side, which display a whitish color on the trunk and whorled branches, redness on the stipules, yellowness on the new leaves that are about to break out, greenness on the top of the fully developed leaves, and a silky white on their bottom. Often the path skirts deep chasms, so that now we can look upon from above the crowns of magnificent trees which had been hidden from us below. We have to marvel at the diverse multitude of trees displayed : Laurineae, Bignoniaceae, Melastomaceae, Myrtaceae, Lecythideae, Leguminosae and Urticineae .

Etching 59  Serr dos Orgaos  from Martius's Flora Brasiliensis 1840. Thanks to Lehigh U., Special Collections ! Color by C. Miranda Chor

When we have left behind this built path, paved generally with stones of granite, alongside which Boehmeria caudata (Falsenettle) or Asa Peixe to the inhabitants, shakes its jutting spikes at the blowing of the mountain wind, where Solanum paniculatum, the Juri-peba of the Brazilians, Asplenium nidus, copyright Otto Ganss. Thanks to www.bambusarium.de   Fair usespreads its prickly branches, where a ten-feet-tall Vernonia polyanthes unfolds its panicles decorated with flower-heads -- and so as we are about to descend from this path into the neighboring forest-groves, we catch sight among the rocks of the numerous and pleasant forms of Pilea, Acrocarpidium, Peperomia, and Gesnera, which push the most splendid flowers out from the cracks in the rocks, but on the floor of the forest we find a thick hedge of Solanum, Myrtaceae and Rubiaceae among various grasses of the family of Paniceae, and many Cyperaceae, among which Scleriaceae, known by type as Titirica, hinder your feet with the tenacity of their stalks.

There is a remarkable abundance of ferns both in the trees and rocks and on the shadowy ground; now they let their dense fronds hang down loosely, such as Nephrolepsis neglecta, now they spread out fully, such as Asplenium nidus. Rarely we also spot among them a Dendropteris (3), or a fern-like tree (such as Alsophila paleolata, hirta, etc.). Most ferns seek the shadows of the primeval forest; others, however, such as Lindsayae, which are noteworthy for their sometimes pale color, gather in groves or on steep hills.

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