NATURAL AREAS AND REGIONS 



635 



agricultural crops on the more densely 

 settled Eastern Cordillera in Boyacd 

 and Cundinamarca, while a boom in 

 cattle is at present causing great and 

 wasteful destruction of this forest in 

 the Quindio and elsewhere in order to 

 create upland pasturage. Still, the 

 mountains of Colombia are today mostly 

 covered with virgin forest, although the 

 traveller along the chief highways may 

 see little of it. 



D. Plateau grassland or savanna 



At several places on the Bogota, 

 Tableland of the Eastern Cordillera, 

 and perhaps occasionally elsewhere on 

 the other Cordilleras in the same cool 

 upper mountain-zone of life, occur 

 flat open areas of natural prairies called 

 sabanas. These may contain marsh- 

 land and enclose small lakes. The two 

 most important of these areas are the 

 Sabana of Bogota in Cundinamarca 

 and the Sabana of Fuquene near Chi- 

 quinquira in Boyaca. Developed ap- 

 parently on the flat bottoms of former 

 lakes, both these sabanas are famed for 

 their rich soils and have been inten- 

 sively cultivated since the days of the 

 Chibcha empire. In the meadows and 

 along the streams of the Bogota savanna 

 may be seen species of Marsilea, Carex, 

 Juncus, Sisyrinchium, Salix, Alnus, 

 Dichondra, Nierembergia, and Gratiola, 

 genera of plants which mostly pertain 

 to the Temperate zones of the earth. 

 Through much of the Bogoti, tableland, 

 and well seen near Bogota itself, are 

 found slopes partly grassy but usually 

 chiefly covered by growths of bushes or 

 in canadas of low trees. A varied and 

 rather rich flora is peculiar here, in- 

 cluding species of Cerastium, Hypericum, 

 Lwpinus, Oestrum, Castilleja, Lamour- 

 ouxia, Cenlropogon, and certain Iri- 

 daceae, Melastomaceae and Vacci- 

 niaceae. 



Here the single plant-tuft may be three 

 or four meters in diameter, dark-green 

 and of coralline hardness, showing no 

 impress where one's foot has stepped 

 upon it. Yet inspection shows that 

 the compactly crowded individual stems 



of Distichia grow upright with the leaves 

 projecting upward so that the human 

 weight has been supported actually 

 upon the tips of the leaves! An in- 

 teresting array of tiny plants of various 

 families, Ericaceae, Gentianaceae, Scro- 

 phulariaceae, Lobeliaceae, etc., grow, 

 dwarfed and protected, within these 

 mats and cushions. 



There are yet other plants of the 

 paramo which seem to depend wholly 

 upon some physiologic protection, and 

 the nearly or quite hairless species of 

 Pedicularis, Bartsia, Halenia and like 

 genera grow in the valleys not far below 

 snow. Indeed, the flowering plants 

 that grow closest of all to snow are 

 species of Arahis and Draba, genera of 

 Brassicaceae with but slight or moderate 

 hairy covering but which yet are able 

 to inhabit the bleakest alpine environ- 

 ments throughout the world. 



The paramo is the most broken into 

 local isolated areas of the mountain 

 zones of life in Colombia. Its flora 

 varies in composition upon each of the 

 Andean Cordilleras and upon isolated 

 tracts of each cordillera. On many 

 of these areas it is still wholly unknown. 



There are only 19 kinds of birds 

 characterizing the paramo; of these the 

 largest number (4) belong to the 

 Trochilidae. 



The paramo "has no mammal fauna 

 of its own as it is too scattered and too 

 limited in extent. Certain forms from 

 the temperate forest extend into it." 



The seasons upon the paramos may 

 occur either at the same time as in the 

 mountain-forest, or else they may more 

 or less reverse the program of lower 

 altitudes. Rains are not heavy on the 

 paramo, but driving misting cold pene- 

 trating rain may occur for many days 

 consecutively. 



In the Quindio and on the Eastern 

 Cordillera in Cundinamarca and Boyaca 

 the paramos are occasionally pastured. 

 To make better growth of grass they are 

 sometimes burned over. Generallj- over 

 Colombia, however, no effort has been 

 made to use these remote and bleak 

 highlands. 



