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"Extreme" Bloom
Photograph by Juan Karita, AP
A man surveys a flowering Queen of the Andes plant—which blooms only once in its 80- to 100-year lifetime—near Thumi, Bolivia, (see map) in a picture taken last week.
The exotic plant blooms for a few weeks before it dies. Even before it blooms, though, the Queen of the Andes has a regal presence, towering up to 40 feet (12 meters) in its mountain habitats of Peru and Bolivia.
(See "Giant Flower Makes Big Stink—For a Limited Time.")
"This is by almost any standard an extreme plant," said Antonio Lambe, who works to preserve the Queen of the Andes through the nonprofit Acción Ambiental. The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the plant as endangered, due to habitat loss and declining genetic diversity.
"It grows in very harsh conditions at very high altitude, and it's head and shoulders above anything else in the area. How something that big could live in that harsh of an environment is, to me, one of the wonders of nature."
—Brian Handwerk
Published November 17, 2010
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Flower Feast
Photograph by Juan Karita, AP
Some field studies suggest that Queen of the Andes plants get additional nutrients from the droppings of birds, which feast on the plant's rare flowers, as seen in a picture taken November 10. Hungry birds sometimes get stuck in the plant's prickly foliage, which is essentially an assemblage of inward-curving "claws."
"If you stick your hand into one of these things, it can get ripped to shreds if you pull it out without great care," Lambe said. Some local people loathe the plant, because they've heard reports of sheep or other livestock becoming similarly ensnared, he added. (See "Spiders, Carnivorous Plants Compete for Food—A First.")
Even so, young Queen of the Andes plants have their own troubles: The plants are routinely trampled or eaten by livestock and burned for agriculture.
Published November 17, 2010
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Bloom Close-Up
Photograph by Juan Karita, AP
Queen of the Andes plants are found only in Peru and Bolivia at altitudes between 9,800 and 15,750 feet (3,000 and 4,800 meters).
"Conditions there are so barren that [the plant] needs time to build up the resources with which it produces the flowering and reproduces," Lambe said. "That's why it's so slow and takes 50 or 100 years."
But the plant's one-time flowering, as pictured last week, is very fruitful: A single plant can produce up to ten million seeds.
(See "Orchid Has 'Active' Sex With Itself—A Flower First?")
Published November 17, 2010
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Solitary Queen
Photograph by Juan Karita, AP
Queen of the Andes plants, like the ones seen above near Thumi, Bolivia, are typically found in small, isolated pockets of a few hundred individuals.
Such spotty distribution prevents the plants from mixing genes, making them more vulnerable to the arrival of diseases, parasites, and predators associated with climate change, Lambe noted. (Related: "Plants 'Climbing' Mountains Due to Global Warming.")
For now Peru hosts about 800,000 plants, while Bolivia has 35,000—but these numbers are decreasing, according to the IUCN.
Published November 17, 2010
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