1. The following slides supplement the forest readings by Bates and Carr.
I have included images from Mexico and Central America to show you what Bates and Carr describe.
I also use some of the terms(in italics) that they employ in their descriptions.

2. Only along the river will you find jungle
Only along the river will you find jungle. Notice that the forest floor is not open. That’s because along the river light penetrates to the floor and allows vegetative growth.
“Balsa”: Actually a made out of the buoyant trunks of several balsa trees
Rio Wampu in La Mosquitia in eastern Honduras .

3. Rio Patuca in Honduran La Mosquitia.
“Pipante” is a local term for “dug-out canoe”. This pipante is made out of “caoba” (Mahogany) which is a tropical rainforest (broadleaf evergreen) tree species.
“Gringo”: non-native species of mammal

4. Several gringos in a pipante on the Rio Patuca
Several gringos in a pipante on the Rio Patuca. Dug-out canoes can be extremely large. That is a function of the giantism of some tropical rainforest species. Columbus reported encountering a dug-out canoe on the north coast of Honduras which held 200 people.
Your instructor

5. This diagram demonstrates how changes in elevation affect the distribution of natural vegetation and forest types. The previous few slides showed locations that are below 500m.

6. Cloud Forest, or weeping woods
The cloud layer begins at about 1800m.
Tropical Dry or Tropical Deciduous Forest.
The rock and cactus are on the rain shadow side of a Honduran mountain where Nov-May is an extremely dry season.

7. Cloud forest
-1800
-1500

8. Ocotal. This a pine forest on the rain shadow side of a Honduran mountain. Note how small and sparse the plants are. Tropical Dry Forest.

9. Cloud forests somewhere in Middle America

10. Hella ocotal! This pine forest is in the highlands (>1800m) of Oaxaca, Mexico in the cloud forest. The trees are larger and more densely distributed than in the Tropical Dry Forest because at this high elevation more moisture is available for plants.

11. Ocotal somewhere in the high relief Middle America.

12. Ocotal somewhere in the high relief Oaxaca
Ocotal somewhere in the high relief Oaxaca. Many of the tropical montane forest tree species (pine, oak, sweet gum) migrated from mid-latitude regions during the Pleistocene to the highlands of Central America.

13. Pino or ocote, depending on which country you are in.
Liquidambar, one of the few deciduous trees in the highlands…
Pino or ocote, depending on which country you are in.

14. Liquidambar
It’s an ornamental tree in Chico

15. Life is lonely in the highlands of Middle America.
Another settlement on the other side of the valley
Indigenous peoples comprise the majority of humans who inhabit the highlands.

16. Did I mention that life is lonely in the highlands?
Young boy rakes his family’s coffee beans.
Hella high relief!
In which season would you want to harvest and dry coffee beans?

17. 1900m
San Miguel de Tiltepec, Oaxaca, Mexico.
Cloud forest or Montaña
This settlement is at approximately 1400m.
Tropical rain forest at the bottom of this slope, which is ~700m.

18. Cloud
Road

19. Bromeliad epiphytes

20. Hijo
Bromeliad epiphytes

21. In this case, the cloud forest tree is dead, but still supports a large community of epiphytes.

22. Cloud forest archipelago
This aerial photograph shows a fragmented cloud forest area in western Honduras.
Fajas de Montaña
Cloud forest archipelago

23. Inside a faja de montaña

24. Inside a faja de montaña
Mochila