164 SOUTH AMERICA 



smaller palms and lianas, tree-ferns, and bambus, the 

 features of the subtropical rain-forest all over the 

 world. This is the home of the cinchona, now culti- 

 vated in similar situations in tropical Asia, and of 

 the wax-palms. The main body of this forest retains 

 its character up to 7,500 feet, when it stops. Wax- 

 palms and some hardier trees go on and up, mingling 

 with deciduous trees to 9,000 or 10,000 feet. In the 

 next zone, the woodlands display low trees of ■ rose 

 of the Andes ', bejaria, and numerous tall shrubs of escal- 

 Ionia, drimys, buddleia (whose vegetation recalls that 

 of the larger kinds of rhododendrons), and an isolated 

 conifer, podocarpus. This woodland zone reaches up to 

 10,500 or 11,000 feet. The upper belt includes the 

 paramos and higher slopes, treeless and reduced to a brush 

 of bushes and grass, with carpets of dry, woolly alpine 

 plants. 



Argentine subtropical Andes. From 20° to 25° S., 

 the eastern Andes establish a transition to the drier 

 conditions prevailing farther south. A cross-section of 

 these slopes offers a lower or basal strip of forests suc- 

 ceeding to the park landscape already mentioned, with 

 its dry and interrupted woodlands which begin at few 

 miles from the sierra. As might be expected, the lower 

 slopes of the mountains are moister than the adjacent 

 plains. Stately trees with dense crowns, including 

 machoeriums, laurels, chestnuts, and broad-leaved cedars, 

 and a rich undergrowth , compose these virgin subtropical 

 rain-forests. They are extremely valuable for their 

 timber, and the nature of the climate, highly favourable 

 for all subtropical produce, would lend itself to a 

 prosperous agriculture were it not for the difficulty of 

 communication. 



A quite temperate zone follows above 3,000 feet, 



