JOURNAL OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN VOL. 47 JUNE PAGES No. 558 19^6 133—160 JOURNAL OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN CAROL H. WOODWARD, Editor JUNE BLOOM AT THE GARDEN Roses HE great Rose Garden on the east side of the grounds, largely contributed by the T firm of Bobbink 5? Atkins, contains 7,000 or more plants in some 800 varieties and species which will be at their peak the first half of June. To reach the Rose Garden by automobile, turn into the grounds at the second gate going east off Fordham Road; or, follow the road from the Main Entrance toward the rear of the Museum Building, then east and south to the Rose Garden. By subway, the nearest route is by way of the White Plains Road line on the East Side IRT, walk­ ing westward from the Pelham Parkway Station. Peonies A collection of 240 varieties, including the Saunders hybrids, at the north end of the Main Conservatory, will be in flower in early June. Rhododendrons Starting in late May, the Garden's large collection of rhododendron hybrids will continue to flower during the early part of June. Daylilies Late June and July is the peak season for daylilies, to be seen in the Experimental Garden on the east side of the grounds. Rock Garden While the peak of the season comes in May, many attractive flowering plants will give pleasing color and pattern during June. JUNE EVENTS AT THE GARDEN Members' Day June 5 Painting Wild Flowers in Westchester County Eloise P. Luquer Rose-Growers' Day June 12 An all-day program starting at 10:30 a.m. with an inspection of the Rose Garden. F. F. Roci{wel], Editor-in-Chief of The Home Garden, will speak at 11:30 on "Roses for the Beginner." A picnic lunch will follow, and at 2 p.m. there will be a clinic and demonstration on roses diseases and culture. Radio Programs 3:30 p.m. on alternate Fridays over WNYC June 14 Your 230-Acre Garden Mrs. Melvin Sawin Member of Advisory Council, New York Botanical Garden June 28 Sugar is the Foundation of All Life E. E. Naylor Assistant Curator, New York Botanical Garden TABLE OF CONTENTS. JUNE 1946 Lilium superbum (with greatly reduced stem) shown in the painting of prairie hens by John James Audubon Cover illustration CUSHION PLANTS OF THE PERUVIAN PUNA W. H. Hodge 133 WILDFLOWER SANCTUARY IN A LONG ISLAND GARDEN Edith Farrington Johnston 141 SOME NOTES ON THE FLOWERS AND TREES IN AUDUBON'S "BIRDS OF AMERICA" Helen M. Fox 144 NOTICES AND REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 152 CURRENT LITERATURE AT A GLANCE Harriet K. Morse 154 BROADCAST—"VEGETABLE OILS THAT MAKE FINE SOAP'' Georgia Leffingwell 155 AFRICAN EXPEDITION UNDER WAY 157 NOTES, NEWS, AND COMMENTS 158 WESTERN COLLECTING TRIP 160 The Journal is published monthly by The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx Park, New York 58, N. Y. Printed in U. S. A. Entered as Second Class Matter, January 28, 1936. at the Post Office at New York, N. Y„ under the Act of August 24, 1912. Annual subscription $1.50. Single copies 15 cents. JOURNAL of THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN VOL. 47 JUNE 1946 No. 558 fashion Plants of the Peruvian Puna By W. H. Hodge Illustrated with photographs by the author EW COUNTRIES can compare with Peru in the variety of plant Fformations. There you can find vegetation typical of lowlands, either wet or dry, of warm humid rain-forests or warm dry thorn-forests, of deserts hot and cold, and also of the alpine and the littoral, the arctic and the tropics, plus all the intergrades lying between. Perhaps most unusual of all are in those areas which the Peruvians call the PUNA—a formation characteristic of the highest Andes and to be encountered from central to southern Peru and in Bolivia. The puna is a part of the treeless ALTIPLANO (high plain), the highest plateau (aver­ aging about 4,000 meters, or 13,000 feet) in the Western Hemisphere, and interesting as the site of the Inca civilization, one of the principal civilization autochthonous to the New World. The Peruvian puna, which technically is that portion of the altiplano lying above the 14,000-foot limit of cultivation, has its northernmost limits at about 8 degrees south latitude in the beautiful snow-covered range of the Cordillera Blanca, which begins just south of the ancient Incaic city of Cajamarca. From this region, on the flanks of Peru's high­ est peak—23,000-foot Huascaran—it extends without interruption, but with many an irregular ramification, along the lofty Cordilleras of the western Andes to southern Peru and Bolivia, where it expands to form its principal display on the high rolling country surrounding the Titicaca basin. The reason the characteristic vegetation of the puna is not found on the snowy volcanoes of Ecuador is apparently due to the rather pro­ nounced reduction in elevation of the Andes in northern Peru, where the Cordilleras average considerably less than 4,000 meters, as compared to the 4,000—5,000 meter average of the true puna. This notable break in the Andes—located in the Cordillera de Huancabamba, lying west of the great bend of the Maranon River—has been the key obstacle to the Dr. Hodge is Visiting Professor, Facultad de Agronomia, Universidad Nacional, Medellin. Colombia. 133 THE PERUVIAN PUNA AND ITS CHARAC­ TERISTIC PLANTS Photographs by W. H. Hodge Tola shrub (Lepidophyllum) on the Pampas de Arrieros, dried and stac\ed to he used as fuel. Boundary between the bunch grass and the puna mat formations, in the vicinity of Huito in southern Peru. The cushion plants are often limited to stony or roc\y areas such as the slope in the background, where the heat'absorbing power of the roc\s raises the soil temperature so that it can better support the plants. « Scattered cushions of Opuntia lagopus and O. fioccosa growing amid bunch-grass on the Pampas de Crucero. This is a favorite grazing ground for llamas and alpacas. Ichu grasses on the pampas near Lage de Salinas, east of Arequipa, at an elevation of 15,000 feet. Azorella with a variety of plants crowding together to share the moisture which is more abundant under the big compact cushions. 135 natural migration not only of high Andean plants but also characteristic puna animals. Thus, puna plants, and especially the cushion formers, are not encountered in Peru north of 8 degrees south latitude; but north of that line occurs a different type of formation called locally the JALCA, or PARAMO,* which is superficially similar to the puna. Except for the absence of the curious FEAILEJON (Espeletia) the jalca, or north Peruvian paramo, is apparently more like the paramos of Ecuador and Colombia than the puna of southern Peru. The puna has an aspect which the Peruvian describes as "triste," perhaps best translated here as "somber." If such a description is just it probably stems from the feeling given by the dull colors characteristic of the vegetation of these high prairies and rock-fields. Except in humid places one seldom sees fresh vivid greens, and instead the perennial wiry grasses have a drab yellow-green or gray-green hue, shared by companion plants and bird life. The year round this color changes little, even during the January to April "winter" when sudden squalls of rain or sleet or snow are in season, offsetting somewhat the overbearing influence of the long dry season. Except for the wet, poorly drained moorlands, the puna is a region of drought to its plant inhabitants. Dry conditions are brought about by a number of factors common in most regions of high altitude. Low atmos­ pheric pressure permits increased evaporation; sunlight, with its potential dessicating power, is increased tremendously by the thinness of the air; and wind movement, working in conjunction with the preceding agents as a drying power, is particularly effective because of its freedom of movement in a region lacking the windbreaking, moisture-holding and shading properties of trees. Night does little to alleviate these dry condi­ tions, for the temperature often drops to the freezing point, and what little soil water may be available then becomes locked in an icy form which is useless to a thirsty plant. Thus the puna is largely a desert, a cold desert, and probably the highest desert in the world. In certain places—for instance, in areas high above and to the east of Arequipa—it can be as barren and devoid of plant life as the most arid stretches of any lowland desert, but more often it sports the characteristic semi-desert aspect—a meager sprinkling of plants upon stony, bouldery, or gravelly soil with nowhere, save in the wet moors, a solid turf of vegetation. The appearance of the puna varies from place to place depending upon such characters as elevation, exposure, soil, drainage, and whether the particular area is in the western or central Andes. On those gravelly prairies bordering upon the tillable portions of the altiplano, tufted bunch grasses called ICHU are most common; brook margins and those ex- * See Fosberg. F. R.. El Paramo de Sumapaz, Colombia. Jour. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 45: 226-234. October 1944. 136 pansive and poorly drained basins into which flow the snow-waters from the glaciers and snows of the higher peaks are covered with a rich green moorlike vegetation in which flat mats of Distichia muscoides of the Juncaceae are dominant; while at the higher exposed elevations which extend up to snowline at 16,500 to 17,000 feet one encounters most fre­ quently the queerest of the puna lot, the cushion plants.