Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 112, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1915 — PARAMO of SANTA ISABEL [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PARAMO of SANTA ISABEL

FEW persons wbo live in the temperate zone are aware of the fact that there is quite a large section of country in tropical America, even at the Equator which is a land of sleet and storm during the greater part of the year, where many of the trails are frequently closed to men and beasts attempting to cross are frozen to death. Such a region is the Andean paramo, in the Republic of Colombia.

Three years ago Dr. Arthur A. Allen explored that elevated land in search of bird specimens, and he has described it in the American Museum Journal. The following paragraphs, says the Bulletin of the Pan American Union, embody substantially the more important features of Doctor A) len's interesting account: The paramo of Santa Isabel lies about two days’ journey from Solento, the largest town on the Quindio trail, which crosses the central Andes, and on cleas days, especially at dusk, can be seen at several points rising above the forest-capped ridges to an altitude between 16,000 and 17,000 feet. Beyond it and a little to the east lies the paramo of Ruis, and, most magnificent of all, Nevada del Tolima, with its'crown of crystal snow gleaming in the rays of the setting sun. Many travelers pass over the trail without ever a glimpse of the snows to the north, seeing only the banks of clouds that obscure even the tops of the moss forest and hide all but the near distance.

One morning in early September the naturalists slung their packs ahd started for the paramo of Santa Isabel From Solento the trail to the paramo leads first down into the Boquia valley and then follows the river’s meandering course through groves of splendid palms nearly to its source, when it turns abruptly and begins a steep ascent of the mountain side The palm trees, in scattered groves, continue to nearly 9,000 feet, where the trail begins to zigzag through some .half-cleared country, where the trees/have been felled and burned over, aqd where in between

the charred stumps a few handfuls of wheat have been planted and now wave a golden brown against the black. Wonderful Cloud Forest. And next the Cloud forest! It is seldom that the traveler’s anticipation of any much-heralded natural wonder is realized when he is brought face to face with it. Usually he feels a tinge of disappointment and follows it by a close scrutiny of the object before him in search of the grandeur depicted, but not so with the Cloud forest. According to Mr. Allen it surpasses one’s dreams of tropical luxuriance. It Is here rather than in the lowland jungle that nature outdoes herself and crowds every available inch with moss and fern and orchiiL.Jlere every twig is a garden and the mossladen branches so gigantic that they throw more shade than the leaves of the trees themselves. Giant branches hang to the ground from the horizontal branches of the larger trees and in turn are so heavily laden with moss and epiphytes that they form an almost solid wall and present the appearance of a hollow tree trunk 15 or 80 feet in diameter. One should pass through this forest during the rainy season to form a true conception of its richness, though even during the dryest months the variety and abundance of plant life covering every trunk branch are beyond belief. The great forest, occasionally interrupted by clearings, continues for

many hours of travel up the mountain from 9,000 to about 12,009 feet, where a sudden change occurs. The trees become dwarfed, their leaves small and thick, heavily chitinized or covered with thick down, and remind one of the vegetation about our northern bogs with their, Andromeda and Labrador tea. Here, too, the ground in places is covered with a dense mat of sphagnum, dotted with dwarf blueberries and cranberries and similar plants which remind one of home. Out Upon the Paramo.

A cool breeze greets the traveler, sky appears in place of the great dome of green, and suddenly he steps out upon the open paramo. He has been traveling through the densest of forests, seeing but a few paces along the trail and only a sow rods Into the vegetation on either side; he has grown nearsighted, and even the smallest contours of the landscape have been concealed by the dense forest cover. Suddenly there is thrown before his vision a whole world of mountains. As far sis he can see in all directions, save behind him, ridge piles upon ridge in never-ending series until they fuse in one mighty crest which pierces the clouds with its snow-capped crown. This is the paramo of Santa Isabel.

At this point the party dismounted and led their horses along the narrow ridge. They looked in vain for the jagged peaks that are so characteristic of our northern frost-made mountains. Here even the vertical cliffs did not seem entirely without vegetation, and as far as could be seen with binoculars the brown sedges and the gray frailejons covered the rocks even up to the very edge of the snow. All about them the strange mulleinlike frailejons, as the native call them, stood up on their pedestals, ten or even fifteen feet in height in sheltered snots; down among the sedges were many lesser plants similar j* our North American species gentians, composites, a hoary lupine, a buttercup, a yellow sorrel, almost identical with those of the United States. Birds also, several of which proved

,to be new to science, were numerous, but all were of dull colors and re- ■ minded them in their habits of the open-country birds of northern United States. A goldfinch hovered above the frailejons; a gray flycatcher ran along the ground or mounted into the air, much like the northern homed larks; an ovenbird flew up ahead of them resembling a meadow lark; a marsh wren scolded from the rank sedges; and almost from under their horses’ hoofs one of the large Andean snipes sprang into the air with a characteristic bleat and went zigzaging away. On a small lake which they came to,, barren except for a few algae, rode an Andean teal, surprisingly like the northern gadwall. And so the story goes on. Here almost on the Equator, but 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, they had left the strangeness of the tropics and come upon a land that was strikingly like their own.

ON THE PARAMO OF SANTA ISABEL