Walking a ridge forest at ca.1300masl de la loma entre r.nambillo and r. cinto, I was surprised to see how many epiphytic orchids were in seed and/or looked as if their next flowering cycle was a long ways from now. This part of the world has a pronounced dry season, roughly June-Dec. That said, 2 Stelis and 2 Pleurothallids, plus an Oncidium and a Lepanthes from a ridge isnt' bad. This place merits at least several more visits this year to see how much the flowering cycle changes: I saw hundreds of tiny Pleurothallids with seed and/or leaves only (Platystele and others?) today.

Today exclusively walked from Cascada Nambillo bridge to the west: so climbing out of the river area to points undiscovered by me. Mostly followed a ridge, and arrived to a patch of pasture--when I looked to the east I was looking eye-level at the Cascada Nambillo buildings where there is a parking lot (the latter not visible).

Nico is from Carchi and he studied and worked with Walter Palacios (author of common trees of Ecuador and tree genera of Ecuador). It was the first time to be in a forest in Ecuador, after living here for nearly 2 decades, with someone who really knew their trees in Ecuador. Well--to be fair--many Kichwas of the Amazon have shown their knowledge to me over the years. Nico reminded me of a few things about neotropical dendrology: 1) there are trees from here right now being described new to science' 2) many more are to be described in the future; 3) there are precious few dendrologists here; 4) and the not-so-new news to me: strict laws and red tape a mile long have science and scientists so ham-strung here that few people consider science as a viable option. As an example of the last: to collect a specimen for deposit to the national herbarium takes tedious paperwork (with rules and laws changing--often before, during, and after your paperwork process), often taking months to complete, for your specimen to even be considered acceptable by the herbarium. A depressing amount of bureaucratic hoops one must navigate. Imagine having to buy a permit to collect even a dandelion from the sidewalk, or to make a specimen a maple in your backyard. Ouch. No small wonder there are only about a thousand plants ID'd to species level here (out of, let's say 20,000), and very small wonder there are few local biologists, with proper collecting and museum experience, involved in iNaturalist, or involved at any level.

All observations for daylight hours today are from MCF Milpe Reserve; an intro sit-down discussion with Tanya-Leyla and Nico. After studying iNat for an hour or two, we walked from the parking lot to on main trail to river to the east/northeast on the reserve property. Nico has several plots within the reserve, so we were checking out some of the trees (he is a dendrologist) he has been studying; I forgot to ask him how many specimens from Milpe trees he has collected and where they are stored. We also looked at his professor's (Walter Palacios) tree books. For the most part we made observations within decent/older forest; when we crossed the river, going farther from roads/the parking lot...that is where the forest became most interesting and where we had the big Cedrela sp.

One of my favorite hikes with the pup, 'La Isla', most of the day today. Most pleurothallids in the exposed areas (most of the hike is open/field mixed with guava and citrus and 'edge' of forest) are seeding or wilting; precious few in the genus Pleurothallis at all; there were some goodies near 1500masl, and a treat to be in the ravine with the waterfalls for the tiny Platystele. However, overall compared to Mar/April/early May my impression is: far fewer orchids in bloom (#of individuals).

Hike the rio bravo area; staying higher (along San Lorenzo rd.) plus short walk to the Rio Bravo crossing

All observations from via a Cunuco, ca. 1200masl, esp. about 4-6kms from Mindo