Flora of Las Orquídeas National Park

Paola Pedraza

The New York Botanical Garden (NY) and the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales and Herbario Nacional Colombiano (COL) are working together to produce a specimen-based checklist of the vascular plants of Las Orquídeas National Park, in Antioquia, Colombia.

Las Orquídeas National Park is nested on the western slopes of Colombia’s Western Cordillera. It boasts an enormous altitudinal gradient (300–3,450 m) and consequent range of vegetation, from lowland rainforests (ca. 300–1,000 m) to premontane (ca. 1,000–2,000 m) and montane forests (ca. 1,000–3,200 m) and, as recently confirmed by our botanical expeditions, scattered high-altitude páramos (ca. 3,200–3,450 m). True pluvial forests cover most of Las Orquídeas National Park (29,118 ha), with an annual rainfall of 3,000-4,000 mm, dropping to 2,500 mm in the páramo. In general, the forests below 2,000 m are considered to be part of the Chocó phytogeographic region (Rangel-Ch. et al. 2004) while the remainder is Andean.

More information: Flora of Las Orquídeas National Park