Those forests, dominated by trees of moderate height, notably of leguminous species, are found widely throughout northern South America, where the climate is characterized by a prolonged dry season, notably in Venezuela, Colombia, and the Brazilian Highlands.

Caatinga

Caatinga (white forest) refers to the generally stunted, somewhat sparse, and often thorny vegetation of the dry interior of northeastern Brazil. Trees, leafless for long periods and able to resist drought, also are characteristic, particularly in the basin of the São Francisco River. Dominant species are leguminous trees, particularly catingueiras (Caesalpinia), juremas (Mimosa), and joazeiros (Zizyphus joaseiro), members of the Euphorbiaceae (spurge) family, and Bombacaceae (a family of tropical trees with palmate leaves and large, dry or fleshy fruit). Undergrowth consists of thickets, bromeliads (plants with basal, often spiny leaves), and innumerable cacti, among which is the xiquexique (Cereus gounellei), the complicated intertwinings of which cover the soil. Where more water is available, caatinga species may grow 30 feet (9 metres) high and form impenetrable thickets.

South Brazilian forests

Those parklike forests, sometimes very dense but interspersed with savanna, occupy vast expanses from the border of the Amazonian rainforest to the marshes of the upper Paraguay River. The typical landscape is a grassland strewn with smaller trees. In effect, it includes a mosaic of associations, from hygrophilous (living or growing in moist places) to xerophilous (adapted to dry conditions) forests and even desert.

Notable is the araucaria, or Paraná pine (Araucaria angustifolia), forest region, between the Paraná River and the Atlantic Ocean, stretching from Curitiba, Brazil, to northern Argentina. Araucarias (which are not true pines) dominate a dense forest of numerous species including hardwoods, yellowwood (Podocarpus), and the South American holly (Ilex paraguariensis), from which the beverage maté is made.

Xerophytic associations

Thickets of small trees and shrubs, often thorny, among which species of Prosopis, Acacia, and Mimosa predominate, cover regions that alternate between dry and relatively wet seasons; those regions particularly include coastal Venezuela, northeastern Colombia, southwestern Ecuador, and northern Peru.

In Peru that association borders the coastal desert, which extends from northern Peru to northern Chile, with a width of 50 to 100 miles (80 to 160 km). Only a few shrubs and some terrestrial (as distinct from epiphytic) bromeliads grow in that area, which becomes greener only in the Andean foothills, where cacti and other xerophytic plants are found, and along the valleys of rivers flowing down from the Andes. In some areas of Peru, winter mists bring humidity, which causes a specialized type of vegetation, lomas (a mix of grasses and other herbaceous species), to grow for a short period of time.

Subantarctic rainforests

Temperate rainforests—similar to those found in British Columbia, Canada, and in the northwestern United States—grow in southern Chile at low and moderate elevations, thanks to abundant rainfall. The most typical trees belong to the genus Nothofagus (beech trees found in the cooler parts of the Southern Hemisphere), the northern species of which are evergreen and the southern species deciduous. Various conifers, notably the alerce and araucarias, mingle with the leafy trees. A dense undergrowth of shrubs, lianas, bamboos, ferns, mosses, and epiphytes grow in the northern districts but disappear toward latitude 49° S. In southern Chilean Patagonia, forests consist of twisted, creeping trees merging into a kind of heath.

Mountain vegetation

In the high Andes, a temperate zone extends from the upper limit of the subtropical rainforest (about 6,000 feet [1,800 metres]) up to the lower limit of the Andean meadows, at an elevation of about 11,000 feet (3,350 metres) in Ecuador and Peru. That zone is very humid on the Amazonian side because of rising air, where both the epiphytes and the undergrowth are dense, creating a cloud forest.

The upper zones have a peculiar vegetation that touches the snow line. In the wet northern Andes in Colombia and Ecuador, Alpine meadows called páramo consist of grasses and other herbaceous plants, often with bright flowers; those are surmounted by taller plants, especially the showy frailejones (Espeletia), which grow 15 to 20 feet (4.5 to 6 metres) high and are crowned by large bouquets of long hairy leaves.

In the south, páramo vegetation merges with that of the high plateaus, notably the tola, a tough wind-resistant shrub, in the Altiplano of southeastern Peru and western Bolivia. Typical vegetation consists of rough grasses, between which grow a variety of herbaceous, cushion, and rosette plants, shrubs, and cacti. Vegetation extends to the limit of permanent snow but becomes scarce at higher elevations, where soil is often barren.