NEOTROPICAL CONIFERS in COSTA RICA
In Costa Rica, the Jurassic-age conifer lineages of the family Podocarpaceae - which are so dominant in the forests of New Zealand and are quite common in other Australasian regions and which surely comprised a large part of the flora of Antarctica before it froze over a dozen or two dozen million years ago - occur in neotropical cloud forests at elevations of 2800 meters (9,000’), forming huge trees. The two dominant species of Podocarp here in Central Costa Rica are Prumnopitys (now {Pectinopitys) standleyi and Podocarpus oleifolius (syn. Podocarpus costaricensis). These are both large monoliths, forming the largest trees in these forests and growing larger than some of the oaks such as Quercus costaricensis and Quercus copeyensis. Prumnopitys standleyi is by far the largest, however both it and Podocarpus oleifolius are usually both covered in dozens of species of epiphytic plants, from orchids to Anthurium to ferns.
I was already familiar with Prumnopitys, having encountered Prumnopitys andina in Southern Chile and Prumnopitys ferruginea in New Zealand. No Podocarps occur in the United States. The closest they get is in El Cielo Biosphere Reserve, three hours South of the Texas Border. These are generally Southern Hemisphere conifers, though there are quite a few in Southeast Asia and Mexico. They’re a very old lineage, thought to have originated in the Jurassic or even Triassic, 200 million years ago.
These forests had already impressed me. I had seen massive Quercus costaricensis trees covered in Bromeliads and other epiphytes. The roots of these trees no doubt supporting a bounty of mycorrhizal fungi species. There were also large trees of Comarostaphylis arbutoides, a madrone relative in the blueberry family, Ericaceae. Being in this forest at dusk was intoxicating, frogs and bird calls among the sound of singing insects as the sun went down and the water vapor in the air gave the dusk a pinkish glow. That night the temperature dropped to the upper 40’s, even though it had been nearly 80 F during the day. The air is thinner at this elevation, which means it doesn’t hold warmth as well and cools off drastically at night. At the same time, due to the tropical latitude and high level of solar insolation, it warms up just as rapidly in the morning. Below are some photos of this special habitat and the species it contains.
