| Brown Zone: It is intermediate between the dense Scalesia forest and the Miconia shrubb vegetation. It is an open forest dominated by cat’s law, tournefortia pubescens, and aunistus ellipticus. |
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Trees are heavily draped with epiphytes, mosses, livertorts and ferms, which give this zone a brown appearance during the dry season. This zone has disappeared because of colonization by man.
Scalesia Zone: The transition zone merges into the evergreen scalesia forest, which is lush cloud forest, dominated by scalesia pedunculata trees.
This type of forest occurs only on the higher islands and, being the richest zone in terms of soil fertility and productivity, has been extensively cut down for agricultural and cattle ranching purposes.
The scalesia forest is diverse and has many endemic species.
Transition Zone: It is intermediate in character between the scalesia and arid zones, but dominated by different species than either of the adjacent zones. The forest is still mainly deciduous. It is much more dense and diverse than forest of
the arid zones and it is often difficult to say whether any species is dominant.
Pampa Zone: There are virtually no trees or shrubs, and the vegetation consists largely of terms, grasses and sedges. This is the wettest zone, specially during the garua season, receiving as much as 2.5 m of rain in some years. |
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