Off to Huaraz Again — Puya Raimondi in Bloom
Tomorrow morning I fly to Huaraz to help out with a U.S. network shoot about melting glaciers in Peru. I’ll be taking the group to Pastoruri, which I didn’t get to visit the last time I was in Huaraz, and I’m looking forward to seeing the once-mighty glacier up close. And, as it happens, something else is happening up there as well that’s rather amazing.
The van driver that we’re hiring tells me that hundreds of puya raimondi are in bloom now. This is the rare bromeliad found only in the Andes and known as the “living fossil.”
Puya raimondi flower only once in their lives, after many years, then die afterward. Their blooms are enormous, prehistoric stalks that grow up to 10 meters tall, making them the largest flowers in the world.
So off we go to see this huge, flowering cousin of the pineapple, which will die thereafter, and then trek up to see a former glacier, now downgraded to an ice cap, that’s about to kick the bucket too.
Update, 10/7: The puya raimondi were strange and stunning — enormous floral stalks extending 20 or so feet into the sky. I asked our van driver to take a picture of me and the NCB crew next to one, and the driver had to stand at the bottom of the hill to snap the picture, that’s how tall the plants were.
But, rather confusingly, I kept reading conflicting information on how often this rare plant booms. A sign in the park said every “40 to 100 years.” Some naturalists’ sites say every 25 years, or every 10 or every 4 or 5. So what is it? Every 4 years or every 100? If you’ve got a link to an authoritative website or paper (not something written by a tourism company), please leave it below.
Barbara
I am an American writer who lived in Lima for seven years (2007-2014), where I covered Andean traditions, melting glaciers and daily life in the capital for Miami Herald, MSNBC and Huffington Post. I now live and work in northern Florida where I champion climate change advocacy and compassionate, affordable eldercare.
2 Comments
Amazilia
Puyas a very beautiful indeed, so lucky you that will be able to see them flowering, is so rare event!
But I don´t understand why you call them “prehistoric” they are quite modern, evolutionarily speaking.
Saludos
Barb
They were beautiful and strange. Quite a sight to see so many of them.
Re their age: Scientists do say that they have been genetically unmodified for hundreds of thousands of years. Perhaps other plants are older, but the puya raimondii seems to have resisted changes to its genetic code and is thus a living fossil in some naturalists’ eyes: http://www.ericjlyman.com/puya.html
The ginko biloba, however, is older.