Guest Blog Post by M. Alejandra Jaramillo
The Mountains
In May 2022, we went on our first expedition to Serranía de Las Quinchas. To reach the Serranía, we turned west in the municipality of Chiquinquirá (known by its beautiful Cathedral, dated 1796), Boyacá department.
Little by little, we left behind the farmland and paved roads, reaching the deep green forest patches a few miles after the town of Otanche (one of the main sites of Emerald commerce).
Leydi Galvis and her parents, Don Lucindo y Doña Edilsa, greeted us with kind smiles and hot coffee, and we subsequently set up the camp to prepare for the next day’s expedition. We spent three days walking up and down the slopes, finding beautiful plants wherever we looked.
Accompanying our group of students from Universidad Militar was Dayro Rodriguez, a young botanist with an incredible eye for plants and a perceptive photographer. It was like visiting the Chocó Region – very humid, green, and diverse!
In our first expedition, we collected most of our plants, including a new species of peltate leaves belong to pepper family (Piperaceae); “caipe” (Orphanodendron gradiflorum C. Cast. & G.P. Lewis), and Romeroa verticillata Dugand.
Interestingly, our Piper quinchasense M. A. Jaram., has now been spotted in several localities in the middle Magdalena Valley. The enigmatic legume Orphanodendron, meanwhile, derives its generic name from its classification within a subfamily of the Fabaceae. However, “caipe” is a locally common tree used for timber.
Romeroa, on the other hand, is a monospecific genus of trees in the Bignoniaceae with unifoliolate leaves. It is a Colombian endemic taxon, known exclusively in wet forests, such as the Las Quinchas region, located in the Boyacá, Cundinamarca, and Santander departments. The genus has been collected only a few times after its description 70 years ago.
Thus, the flora at Las Quinchas is an exciting combination of species with affinities to the Andes, Chocó Region, and the North West Amazon, with many endemics that make the area a deep, green paradise.
Subsequent expeditions to the site have consistently yielded discoveries of new and rare plant species. These efforts are supported by a close collaboration with Gerardo Aymard, an expert botanist whose unrivaled ability to review collections and identify new taxa is essential to our work.
Gerardo’s botanical expertise has allowed him to identify two new species to science: Grias lucindoae Aymard & M. A. Jaram. (Lecythidaceae) and Schlegelia longirachis Aymard & M. A. Jaram. (Schlegeliaceae). Both rare genera are often missed by collectors or remain untouched in Herbaria.
The Lowlands
In 2024, we had the opportunity to visit the lowlands in the same region. A team of faculty and students from Universidad Militar Nueva Granada visited Reserva “El Paujil”.
Lizette Sierra, Paula Lara, and Luisa Suarez came across a tree species with a unique flower that, no doubt, turned out to be a new taxon. Again, by the joint efforts of the young and inquisitive Andres F. Majin-Ladino, and the expert eye of Gerardo Aymard, we decided it was a rare Sapotaceae – this is one of those families for which indeterminate specimens pile up in herbaria around the world, as botanists just do not find flowers or the courage to identify species.
We consulted the world expert in Sapotaceae, Terrance D. Pennington (The Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew), who was puzzled by the flowers he did not recall. Andres F. Majin-Ladino, with support from Fundación Proaves, visited the locality several times to collect additional samples. We conducted molecular sequence analyses, and the four of us henceforth described a new species of Sarcaulus, S. paujilensis M. A. Jaram. & T. D. Penn, now published in the open-access journal PhytoKeys.
Alarcón.
The Bigger Picture
It is noteworthy that the Serranía de las Quinchas is at the heart of Emerald’s business in Colombia. Mining has been the fundamental activity in the region for very long time, not only of emeralds but also coal. We ought to thank the locals for conserving the remaining beautiful forests. More exploration is needed in the region to uncover its diversity, and efforts should be made to provide alternative economic activities for the community if we want to curb deforestation.
Currently, Las Quinchas region represents a complex and fragile spot of biodiversity that remains largely uncharted, even after centuries of exploration. Humans have long modified the environment and examples of overexploitation and associated species eradication are well-documented.
Forest ecosystems, such as the Magdalena River valley, are the most important global repository of terrestrial biodiversity, with more than half of tree species at risk of extinction. Quantifying the current global forest biodiversity is therefore an essential step towards mitigating global biodiversity loss and restoring biodiversity in severely affected areas.
Tree species diversity underpins forest ecosystem functionality and services, as well as the diversity of assemblages of flora, fauna, and microbes. Therefore, characterising and describing tree species diversity (i.e., Sarcaulus paujilensis), as well as its spatial patterns, is also crucial for safeguarding global ecosystem functioning, food, water, energy security, and our well-being.
We are confident that many new plant species of the common families (i.e., Burseraceae, Lecythidaceae, Leguminosae, Meliaceae) of these wet forests will reveal themselves as we visit the locality and walk along the ridges with our eyes open.
Key to our discoveries is our passion for exploring the forest. Indeed, we have young students like Andrés Majin, and young botanists like Dayro Rodriguez on our side. Don Lucindo is equally attentive to let us know about flowering and fruiting periods and rare plants to examine. The contribution of young botanists and local experts has been key to our discoveries!
Original source:
Jaramillo MA, Pennington TD, Aymard-Corredor GA, Majin-Ladino AF (2026) Morphological and genetic evidence for the Sarcaulus brasiliensis complex (Sapotaceae, Chyrsophylloideae) reveals a new species from the rainforests of the Middle Magdalena Valley, Colombia. PhytoKeys 273: 37-54. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.273.175192
