Puya pizarroana R.Vasquez, Ibisch & S.Beck
Literature references:
Comments:
- HABITAT: This new species is found in the Yungas Piramo vegetation, a humid grassland distinguished from the Puna by its lack of seasonality and by containing several plant families and genera typical of the northern Andes Piramo (Lopez 1998). Some authors have postulated that the habitat may be anthropogenic due to forest burning which may have lowered the limit of the treeline (e.g. , Kessler 2000). Originally, there could have been a continuous forest belt from the lower mixed cloud forests to the Polylepis forests of the Puna region. The Puya in this original forest region, as many other Piramo taxa, would have grown at azonal sites like steep rocky slopes. It is rather typical that the mostly fire and grazing-resistant Puya species are benefited by human land use converting forests into open grass or shrub vegetation (Ibisch 1998). In the case of the new species it is assumed as well that it does not have any conservation problems. —See J. Bromeliad Soc.
