Pink Trumpet Tree on the Kaw mountain, French Guiana (4°30' N - 52°00' W). Card 170x120mm with recycled envelope and biodegradable cello. Detailed caption on the reverse of the card. Card is blank for your own message.
Pink Trumpet Tree on the Kaw mountain, French Guiana (4°30' N - 52°00' W).
Before flowering in a spectacular manner, this tree in the Guyanese forest loses all its leaves. Botanists gave it a scientific name, Tabebuia impetiginosa. Brazilians call it pau d'arco (arc wood) or ipe roxo and Argentinians call it lapacho. It can be found in the humid tropical forests from Mexico to Argentina. It is very hard and its wood does not float. It is also known across South America for its medicinal uses. In this ocean of greenery, the Tabeuia's isolated flowering shows this species' weak density. Conversely to the temperate forests that can provide homogeneous populations of one or only a few species of trees such as pine, oak and beech grove plantations, tropical forests contain thousands of vegetal species. French Guiana has 5 500 different plants including over a thousand trees. Over 300 different tree species can be found in just one hectare of forest. That is more than in the whole of Europe. With such biodiversity, it is clear that such forests cannot be exploited in the same way as other forests. Between 2000 and 2005, deforestation progressed in South America at an annual rate of 4.3 million hectares. This is an area as large as Denmark.
|
