Members of the genus Espeletia are the signature plants of páramo – a wondrous-strange “tropical tundra” ecosystem which exists only in certain very high, very wet parts of northern South America & southern Central America.
Much páramo has been destroyed (or much-degraded) by humans & their livestock; climate change is another existential threat.
More than half of the surviving páramo is in Colombia.
Espeletia species are generally known as frailejones, which translates into English as “big monks”.
To Australian eyes, they look a bit like our so-called “grass trees”, but they are not even remotely-close relatives.
Espeltia, Xanthorrhoea & Kingia genus members do, however, share one reality: all are neither grasses nor trees.
The frailejones’ actual “cousins” are sunflowers!
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