Venezuela
Mérida
This university-town is situated at an altitude of 1700 meter and from here it is possible to take a cablecar to the Pico Espejo at 4765 meter. One looks down on the páramo, a desolate area above the treeline, home of the "frailejóne", a plant with fuzzy leaves and yellow flowers from the genus Espeletia (not a bromeliad!).
Below the treeline in the Sierra Nevada de Mérida Puya aristeguietae florishes, 1,5 m in height (left).
In the town itself there is a great richness of epiphytes, for example on the square of the Parque de las Cinco Repúblicas where the trees are curtained with Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides), a big species like Tillandsia fendleri peeping through.
The statue on the square represents Simon Bolívar, the world's first monument dedicated to El Libertador (1842).
In the vicinity of the town lies the cloudforest of the park La Mucuy, where on the trees Racinaea tetrantha var. scarlatina abounds, a small variety of this species with red bracts and known only from the federal state of Mérida. The picture below shows this species.
