Amazon 3.0 -- Vines and Epiphytes

Amazon 3.0 - Vines and Epiphytes

June 25-July 7

A tropical rainforest rarely allows any plant the space to just grow and be left alone. To a vine a tree trunk is a convenient pathway to sunlight. To an epiphyte a tree branch is a pleasant place to just hangout and wait for water and nutrients to drift or fall your way.

Aside from my Spanish-English and Portuguese-English dictionaries and the appropriate chapters torn from Lonely Planet’s Venezuela and Brazil guide books, John Kricher’s A Neotropical Companion is my most valuable resource for this trip. Most - probably all - of any botanical observations I make along the way would not be made - or would likely be wrong - without Kricher.

“Liana is a growth form, not a family of plants…” Many rainforest species can take both a tree form and a vine form - one reason we see so many types of vines while travelling these regions.

Epiphytes, plants that pull their nutrients from the air, may be up to a quarter of the plant species in low altitude tropical rainforests. Many bromeliads are epiphytes and if some look like pineapples it is because they are in the same family. There are, Kricher informs us, about two thousand species of bromeliad in the Americas, all members of the pineapple family.

These photos were all taken from the deck of Iguana while travelling up the Rio Orinoco between Samariapo (which is just above the rapids that block navigation to Puerto Ayacucho) and the entrance to the Casiquiare. If anyone with a broader botanical knowledge than mine would give some of these vines and epiphytes their proper names I would certainly appreciate it and will attach the names to these photographs at first opportunity.

---

---