Collecting Ferns in the Colombian Llanos

Abstract

We wanted a chance to thaw out in the hot country of the tropics after having lived in the cool, rainy Andes at Bogota, elevation 8,500 feet, where we were employed as botanists by the Foreign Economic Administration. Not shown on most maps, Puerto L6pez is a new, frontier town in the Intendencia del Meta at the edge of the sparsely settled Indian country and down in the hot lowland at an elevation of only 800 feet above sea level. It is on a recently constructed highway, or auto road, east from Bogota, the capital of Colombia, and is also at the head of navigation on Rio Meta, a tributary of Rio Orinoco of Venezuela.