Ambassador of Peru
There are livings beings that adorn our world and that only demand our protection and care for the environment where they live. We refer to plants, which offer us only benefits for a better coexistence on our planet earth.
Peru, a country with its marked three regions, such as the Coast, facing the Pacific Ocean; the Sierra with its chains of high mountains; and, the Amazon jungle with a great richness in flora and fauna, also offers us peculiar, exotic, and unique living species, such as the Puya de Raimondi, a majestic plant considered the largest inflorescence (group of flowers) on the planet.
It is in the Cordillera Blanca, central region, and located at more than 3,800m above sea level, where the Huascaran National Park is located, Ancash Region, Peru; and where we can appreciate the habitat of this unique plant.
In this park, we find a wonder of the Peruvian fauna, the Puya Raimondi with a height of 3-12m when it blooms for a year, and with a diameter of 6m, scientifically known as Puya di Harms and also with other names, such as Titanca, Santon, Q’ayara, llacuas, ckara, cunco and junco.
It is one of the most beautiful plants of the High Andean flora, with a lifetime of 40-100 years, flowering only once upon reaching 100 years and then dying.
It was discovered in 1874 by the Italian scientist Antonio Raimondi, who described it as a rarity that flourishes after 100 years of life and dies after first reproduction.
It produces from 6,000-20,000 white flowers and between 8 and 12mn seeds, flowering between October and December.
Antonio Raimondi (1826-1890) who discovered it in the Chavín de Huántar area, during his travels through Peru, and in 1874 he was the first to assign the scientific name to the plant, calling it Pourretia gigantea, renamed in 1928 by the German botanist Hermann Harms (1870-1942) for that of “Puya Raimondi”.
It is known that in the world we have 3 thousand species of this type of flowering plant, however, the Puya de Raimondi stands out for being the largest and the most numerous in thousands of flowers, being in danger of disappearing.
As we have mentioned, the Puya de Raimondi can be seen in the Huascaran National Park, located in the central highlands of Peru and created on July 1, 1975, and declared a Natural Heritage Site by Unesco in 1985. It is an area protected by its unique flora and fauna while having a cultural richness in South America. The Puya de Raimondi is one of the most impressive plants that exist on the planet, related to the pineapple, it looks like a giant maguey, considered a threatened species, located in the “endangered” category.
It lives accompanied by Andean camelids, such as the vicuña, llama, alpaca, and guanaco, and various birds that usually build their nests among the leaves, those measuring 2m in length have strong thorns, which allow them to protect themselves from other animals. , and is also an important source of food for birds, especially high-altitude hummingbirds.
Another aspect that deserves to be highlighted about this beautiful and unique plant is the usefulness of the trunk which becomes firewood for the inhabitants when its life cycle ends.
To have a better knowledge about this wonderful plant, we have to visit the places where it is found and enjoy an unforgettable moment.
