Note 17 — Chapter V · EL RIO META

In the forests along the Meta we could within a small area easily have collected more orchids than were known to Linnæus. They were everywhere—in the forks of trees, on their branches, on decaying trunks, on the lianas stretching from one tree to another, and, forming with the flowering epiphytes17 with which they were laden, the most beautiful tapestry, beside which the most exquisite Gobelin masterpiece would pale into insignificance. In other places they grew on bare, precipitous rocks, where they were quite inaccessible, on prickly cactus plants, near beautiful cascades, or clumps of arborescent ferns. We found them flourishing near the ocean shore and near the limits of perpetual snow on the crests of the Cordilleras.