Giant Puya Slopes

Giant Puya Slopes is an original illustration set in Peruvian High Andes. It lies in the tropics, where the climate is tundra — too cold for trees.

A gigantic radial rosette of long rigid sword-like leaves sends up one extremely tall packed flower spike. Several smaller non-flowering rosettes sit on the rocky slope around it. The air is thin and the sunlight hard and unfiltered.

Why does this plant flower once and then die?

This plant grows for decades as a rosette, flowers once with the tallest spike of any species on Earth, then dies — a strategy that only pays off where pollinators are scarce and the growing season short. Rigid spined leaves deter grazing and channel rain to the centre. Bare rock at this altitude under this intensity of light is high tropical puna.

Terpano is a free daily geography puzzle. You study one original illustration, place a pin on a borderless terrain map, and see how close you were. There is no account and no sign-up; progress stays in your own browser. It plays in 11 languages.