Venezuelan Andes montane forests
RESOLVE 513
The Venezuelan Andes montane forests cloak the middle elevations of the Cordillera de Mérida, the northeastern arm of the Andes that rises above 4,000 metres, spanning the Venezuelan states of Mérida, Trujillo, Táchira, Lara, and Barinas with a small extension into Colombia. The vegetation grades from evergreen transition forests at roughly 800 to 2,000 metres into taller, epiphyte-rich montane cloud forests above that, with the canopy drawn largely from the families Lauraceae, Moraceae, Myrtaceae, Bignoniaceae, Euphorbiaceae, and Araliaceae. The climate is humid and mild, with annual temperatures around 12 to 24 degrees Celsius and rainfall of about 2,000 to 3,000 millimetres. This is a center of high endemism, holding at least 155 endemic plants alongside 25 endemic birds and four endemic mammals, and its cloud forests still shelter the spectacled bear; persistent forest clearing for subsistence farming, plus over-harvesting of orchids and bromeliads, is the chief threat. For gardeners drawn to montane natives, the cloud forests here include ornamental woody genera such as Oreopanax and Weinmannia.
About the tropical & subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome
Warm, wet, highly productive forests — including tropical rainforests — with closed canopies, near year-round growing seasons, and the richest terrestrial biodiversity on Earth. Low seasonality and high rainfall sustain dense, layered vegetation from canopy to forest floor.
Collections for this ecoregion
No curated collection's plants all fit this ecoregion's zone range. We surface a collection only when every member would grow here — partial fits get filtered out rather than mislead. As the catalog and the curated set both grow, this section will fill in.