The medicinal strength of this bark is said to increase in proportion to
the degree of moisture imparted to the foliage of the tree by the light
mists which form the upper surface of the clouds resting over the plains.
Every where around, the confines of the forest are encircled by broad bands
of social plants, as the delicate aralia, the thibaudia, and the
myrtle-leaved Andromeda, while the Alpine rose, the magnificent befaria,
weaves a purple girdle round the spiry peaks. In the cold regions of the
Paramos, which is continually exposed to the fury of storms and winds, we
find that flowering shrubs and herbaceous plants, bearing large and
variegated blossoms, have given place to monocotyledons, whose slender
spikes constitute the sole covering of the soil. This is the zone of the
p 35
grasses, one vast savannah extending over the immense mountain plateaux, and
reflecting a yellow, almost golden tinge, to the slopes of the Cordilleras,
on which graze the lama and the cattle domesticated by the European
colonist. Where the naked trachyte rock pierces the grassy turf, and
penetrates into those higher strata of air which are supposed to be less
charged with carbonic acid, we meet only with plants of an inferior
organization, as lichens, lecideas, and the brightly-colored, dust-like
lepraria, scattered around in circular patches.
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