Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Mountains Of New Grenada Surrounding The Table-Lands Of Bogota
Are More Than Two Hundred Leagues Distant From Those
Of Caracas,
and yet the Silla, the only elevated peak in the chain of low
mountains, presents those singular groupings
Of befarias with
purple flowers, of andromedas, of gualtherias, of myrtilli, of uvas
camaronas,* (* The names vine-tree, and uvas camaronas, are given
in the Andes to plants of the genus Thibaudia, on account of their
large succulent fruits. Thus the ancient botanists gave the name of
bear's vine, uva ursi, and vine of Mount Ida (Vitis idaea), to an
arbutus and a myrtillus, which belong, like the thibaudia, to the
family of the Ericineae.) of nerteras, and of aralias with hoary
leaves,* (* Nertera depressa, Aralia reticulata, Hedyotis
blaerioides.) which characterize the vegetation of the paramos on
the high Cordilleras of Santa Fe. We found the same Thibaudia
glandulosa at the entrance of the table-land of Bogota, and in the
Pejual of the Silla. The coast-chain of Caracas is unquestionably
connected (by the Torito, the Palomera, Tocuyo, and the paramos of
Rosas, of Bocono, and of Niquitao) with the high Cordilleras of
Merida, Pamplona, and Santa Fe; but from the Silla to Tocuyo, along
a distance of seventy leagues, the mountains of Caracas are so low,
that the shrubs of the family of the ericineous plants, just cited,
do not find the cold climate which is necessary for their
development. Supposing, as is probable, that the thibaudias and the
rhododendron of the Andes, or befaria, exist in the paramo of
Niquitao and in the Sierra de Merida, covered with eternal snow,
these plants would nevertheless want a ridge sufficiently lofty and
long for their migration towards the Silla of Caracas.
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