The Incas and Plants

Whilst visting various archaeological sites around the Andes it comes apparent how important plants, the environment and the seasons were to the ancient cultures of South America, both pre-Inca and within the Inca empire itself; this is evident through the art work, pottery, jewellery and other ornaments created by these cultures.

One of the main activities of the Incas was agriculture. The Incas were dispersed over the Andes and lived in very different geographic locations and the crops they cultivated varied with the different climates and conditions. They are loosely divided into three areas:

Yunka - 'Eyebrows of the Jungle' warm and humid at an altitude of 1800m-3000m, crops included:
Arracacia xanthorrhiza - Peruvian carrot, looks a bit like a carrot crossed with Celery, and is in fact in the same family, APIACE. It is cultivated for its starchy, edible storage root.
Ipomea batata - One of my favouites, Sweet potato!
Manihot esculenta - Yukka (EUPHORBIACEAE), also known as 'Jungle Potato' as it is another tuber crop with a texture not to dissimilar to potato, and in fact if sliced and fried it tastes just like chips!
Carica papya - Papaya
Persea americana - Avocado
Passiflorus ligularis - Passion fruit
Phaleolus lunatus - Butter bean or Lima bean
Phaleolus vulgaris - Common bean
Lupinus mutabilis - Grown for its edible seeds
Arachis hypogaea - Peanut

Queshwa - Dry temperate area with a temperature range of 13-7 degrees celcius. Crops included:
Ullucus tuberosus - Papa lisa, edible tubers.
Tropaolum tuberosum- Tuberous Nasturtium
Cyhomondra splendens - Tomate de arbol
Capsicum annuum - Cayenne pepper
Cyclanthera pedata - Wild cucumber
Capsicum pendulum - Hot pepper
Zea maize - Maize

Puna - high Andean altitudes

Chuna and Moraya (Basically dehydrated potatoes)

Solanum tuberosum - Potato

Chenopodium pallidicaule - Quinoa

One of the other important uses of plants is for textiles. Cotton originated in the South American tropics; the Incas, who generally lived at higher altitudes, tended to use fibres from Alpacas and Llamas and plants were used as sources of dyes. Species used for dyes include...

Usnea barbata - a Lichen
Bidens andicola
Buddlejia coracea
Indigofera tinctora
Juglans neotropical - Peruvian Walnut
Baccharis polyantha
Bixa orellana
Schinus molle - Peruvian pepper tree

The Inca Eden Project?
Not far from the original Inca capital, Cusco, lies Moray. This is an impressive site that is made up of a deep ampitheatre of circular terraces, as the photo below shows (note the people at the bottom for scale).



There are many theories for the role of Moray, but it is widely considered to be a sort of giant plant laboratory, where the Incas grew over 60% of vegetable species including over 3000 varieties of potatoes, maize and many other species. The sheltered position of the site means that each of these cultivation terraces represents about 1000m of altitude in normal conditions of farming. The complex, which is 150m from top to bottom, represents 20 or more micro climates. The Incas used the site to select varities which would be suitable for different climatic conditions in different parts of the Inca empire. So maybe Mendel didn't discover F1 hybrids afterall...

Incas and Garden Design
The incas were obviously impressive engineers, designing huge forts, villages, temples and agricultural systems, using giant blocks, some weighing over 300 tonnes (defying modern day lifting technology! And this was all created by a culture that had not invented the wheel!). Some of the most beautiful parts of the Incan sites were the irrigation systems and water features:


Water fountain at Ollaytantambo


Irrigation rills at Pisac

And of Course, Macchu Picchu
I could not write about the Incas without mentioning Macchu Picchu, which really does live up to and deserve all the hype! The thing that is most spectacular about the site is it's location, set on top of a mountain in the middle of cloud forest (one of my favourite ecosystems!) Cloud forest is one of the most biodiverse ecosystems; for example the sanctuary of Macchu Picchu makes up just 0.07% of Peru's territory, but it contains 17% of Peru's species of POACEAE and ORCHIDACEAE, 15% of SCROPHULARIACEAE and 10% of ASTERACEAE. At the bottom of the valley where the steep climb up to Macchu Picchu begins on an old Inca path is a small Botanic Garden, an absolute gem, which is not widely advertised (I only came across it by chance) - definitely worth a visit if you're in the vicinity! Plants to be found within the Macchu picchu santuary:


Sobralia virginalis ORCHIDACEAE
There are 1,625 orchid species in Peru, and in the reserve at Macchu Picchu there are at least 420 different species (infact, the figure is thought to near 600. The great beauty of the orchid has threatened many species as they are taken from the wild, the most at risk genuses are considered to be, Anguloa, Bletis, Lycaste, Masdavillia, Phrgmipedium, Sobralia, Stanhopea and Telipogon.

Hippeastrum machupijchense AMARILIDACEAE

Heliconia affinis MUSACEAE

Fuchsia boliviana ONAGRACEAE

References and sources:
www.cuco-peru.org/cusco-surrounding-cusco.circuitos-moray.shtml
Textiles museum, Cusco.
Museo de Inca, Cusco.
Macchu Picchu museum and botanical garden, not the correct name but have managed to lose my guide book, so can't look it up - sorry!

Hello!

Having been inspired by working in the glasshouses of the University of Oxford´s Botanic Garden I decided that I wanted to visit South America.

I've been in South America now for almost 5 weeks and as the time has flown by I have come across a range of climates, habitats and hole range of exciting plants, and also exciting uses for plants. So much so that I felt that I had to dedicate an entire blog to them.

I am certainly not an expert on plants inparticularly ones from South America, I have tried my best to identify species, or make a guess. Please feel free to correct me by posting a comment. I am trying to pick up as much knowledge from asking local people (usually the best source), visiting local museums and from various websites. I hope to include various ethnobotanic uses too.

I am travelling with my boyfriend who has patiently humoured me when I`ve wanted to stop a bus to get out to get a photo of a plant. You can read about our general trip at www.petestravels.blogspot.com.

The Pampas
We took a 3 day tour of the Pampas from Rurrenabaque, Bolivia. Rurrenbaque is a small town on the edge of the tropical forests of bolivia, about a 16 hour very uncomfortable bus ride to the east of La Paz and the Bolivian Altiplano. It has a tropical climate with high humidity with an wide range of rainfall averages ranging from 700mm in the driest parts to 5000mm in the most humid places the temperature ranges from 20 - 35 degrees celcius.

Rurrennabaque is the main jumping off point for tours of the Pampas, more open areas of jungle characterised with areas or grass, Pampas tours are more popular with tourists than jungle as there is more open space to see cute fluffy monkeys and other animals (the tour agencies never mention how exciting the plants are!) Due to time constraints and having to be in Peru for the 9th of August we had to do a short 3 day tour of the Pampas (to get the jungle takes at least a day to travel there and a day to travel back, so the Jungle will have to wait till later!)

We had a very dusty drive for three hours from Rurrenbaque, the flora dominating the landscape was palms, grassland and quite a lot of marshy areas. The drive was punctuated with stops for sightings of wildlife - Crocodiles and a sloth and a quick change of tyre when we got a punture on the rough terrain. Arriving on the banks of the Tuichi River, we were honored with a display from the local Pink river dolphin team. We met our guide, Wilson and loaded our bags into a Canoe and then spent 3 hours motoring up river taking in the wildlife as we went. It really struck me as we journyed up how many amazing different species of plants there were - I could only recognise a few, there was a couple of Ficus sp. not the small straggly things you see growing on supermarket shelves but huge trees, plunging new trunks into the ground. I also recongnised a couple of aquatic plants, the water lettuce Pistia stratiotes and the water hyacinth, Eichhornia crassipes, which certainly seemed quite invasive.

The next day, we went for a walk across the Pampas in search of Anacondas, this was an area of very wet grass land, the area floods during the rainy season. Again the only plant I could recognise was the sensitive plant, Mimosa pudica everyone took great delight in stroking the leaves and watching them suddenly wither in front of their eyes.

The third day we spent on the river, trying to catch Pirhanas for our supper and swimming, aparently if the Pink dolphins are near by there are no Crocodiles, Caymen or Pirhanas about well thats what our guide assured us as we all dived in!

Salar de Uyuni and the Altiplano
The next area of exciting plants was in the Bolivian Altiplano. We took a 4 day tour of the famous Salar de Uyuni and surrounding lakes and vocanoes.


The vast expanse of the Salar

The Salar is 3665m above sea level and covers an area of 12,000 sq.m the salt ranges in thickness from 2-20m and is a left over from a giant inland sea. The amount of salt in the Salar is considered to be 64 000 million tonnes. Not only is it a large reserve of salt but also is rich in Lithium, Magnesium and Borax. During on the first day of the tour we drove across the Salar to Isla Pescado, or Fish Island, so called because of its shape. It is an isolated oasis in the middle of a salt dessert with its own unique ecosystem, including huge Oreocereus sp. Cacti, one specimen being 12m tall.


Huge cacti on Isla Pescado.



The cacti are well adapted to their environment, coated with abundant hairs that protects them from the intense sunlight which is reflected from all directions from the bright white salt. The hairs probably also help the cacti to cope with the abrupt temperatures, which can range from -25 to 25 Degrees Celcius. They certainly recieve little rain, about 400mm a year. The atmosphere is incredibly dry too, the humidity reader at the information office on the island read 50%.

After lunch we drove on leaving the Salar and onto the Dry Puna of the Atliplano. The vegetation in the dry puna is characteristically tropical alpine herbs with a few dwarf shrubs. This region recieves less than 400mm of rainfall a year anbd with a very long 8 month dry season. You certainly had be tough to grow here!


Tough plants of the Altiplano

However, there is a long tradition of ancient cultures who made a living off the land. Quinoa Chenopodium quinoa has been cultivated in the altiplano 1000s of years. It was one of the most sacred foods of the ancient Incas, who called it Chesiya mama or mother grain. An annual herb both the leaves, which are rich in vitamin A and the seeds (after the bitter saponin coat has been removed) are edible. The seeds are highly nutrious, being rich in protien, high in fibre and partiucarly rich in Lycine- an amino acid and is also a good source of calcium, phosphorous and vitamins B and E.

The altiplano has areas of grassy stepes which mainly contain grass species of Calamogrostis, Festuca and Stipa.

The areas richness in minerals is aparent in the lakes. Laguna Verde's green colour is a result of the high concentrations of Lead, sulphur and calcium carbonate. Larguna Colorada is a rusty red colour from the algae that feed that thrive on the mineral rich water and its shoreline is white from deposits of sodium, magnesium, borax and gypsum.

In rocky areas of the altiplano I came across the biggest cushion plants I'd ever seen! Locally called Llareta or Arozella compacta which is found growing in between rocks. It forms very dense cushions and is a member of the APIACE or carrot family - it didn't look anything like a carrot to me! It only grows 2mm per year. I noticed when I touched the plant it had a sticky resin, this has a high calorific value and is why local people have used the plant as a source of fuel for fire, as there is a shortage of trees for firewood in the area. In the past the plant has been over exploited as a fuel in the industry for Salpetre and copper and populations are at risk.


Huge Arozella!

Arozella up close

Recent research has shown that Arozella contains some compounds that show some effectiveness American trypanosma disease or Chagas disease which effects the nervous system and heart - just goes to prove you should be careful what you burn!

During our drive through the volcanous region I also came across another species of Cacti, Cumulopuntia ignescens. And lots of small shruby plants with coniferous like scales on them, again another adaptation to cope with the extreme dryness of the environment.


Cumulopuntia ignescens

The main threats to the vegetation growing on the Andean puna is from grazing, Camalids (Llamas and Alpacas), goats and sheep degrade the vegetation so much that it makes it difficult for plants to complete their life cycles. firewood collection and clearance for cultivation also has a significant impact.

Referrences:
www.worldwildlife.org/wildworldprofiles/terrestrial/nt/nt1001_full.html
www.uta.cl/flora_nativa/lista_del_parque.html