Locate in the Andes, above the last continuous forests and below the permanent snowline, and ranging from Costa Rica to Peru, páramos contain some of the Earth's richest floral diversity. James Luteyn draws on his decades of fieldwork in the region and his exhaustive research to assemble here, for the first time all in one place, a wealth of information on this ecosystem. Included are an annotated checklist of the more than 3000 vascular plants and more than 1200 lichens, mosses, and hepatics found there; a gazetteer for each country containing páramo; a mammoth list of references; and a fascinating and detailed introduction to the páramo system.
