Yareta (Azorella compacta, also known as Azorella yareta in the past) is a tiny flowering plant in the family Apiaceae native to South America, occurring in the Puna grasslands of the Andes in Peru, Bolivia, Chile and the west of Argentina at between 3200 and 4500 metres altitude.
Yareta is an evergreen perennial being in leaf all year. The pink or lavender flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs) and are pollinated by insects. The plant is self-fertile.
The plant prefers light (sandy) and well-drained soils. It can grow in nutritionally poor environments, no matter if the soil is acidic, neutral or basic (alkaline). Yareta is well-adapted to high insolation rates which are typical of the highlands, and cannot grow in shade. The plant grows in a very compact way in order to reduce heat losses and very close to ground level where air temperature is one or two degrees Celsius higher than the mean air temperature, this is due to the longwave radiation re-radiated by the soil (which is usually dark gray to black in the Puna).
The plan grows at a rate of approximately one millimeter per year, and thus many yaretas are over 3,000 years old.
External links
Other pages about Flora of Argentina
-Acacia -Acacia albicorticata -Acacia etilis -Aechmea distichantha -Antarctic flora -Arachis correntina -Arachis duranensis -Araucaria -Austrocedrus -Berberis buxifolia -Berberis darwinii -Billbergia nutans -Canna coccinea -Canna speciosa -Celtis tala -Chaguar -Chloroleucon chacoense -Chusquea culeou -Chusquea quila -Colobanthus quitensis -Coursetia brachyrachis -Coursetia hypoleuca -Cyathea incana -Denmoza -Deschampsia antarctica -Drimys -Echinodorus argentinensis -Eucryphia -Hackberry -Inga saltensis -Lemon verbena -Luma apiculata -Luma chequen -Magellanic subpolar forests -Maytenus magellanica -Nothofagus -Pampas Grass -Passiflora caerulea -Pfaffia glomerata -Pithecellobium grisebachianum -Pithecellobium pithecolobioides -Poecilanthe parviflora -Prosopis abbreviata -Quebracho -Senecio pulcher -Skottsbergia paradoxa -Solanum viarum -Spanish moss -Tephrocactus bonnieae -Tetragonia -Trithrinax campestris -Utricularia nervosa -Utricularia pusilla -Utricularia triloba -Valdivian temperate rain forests -Verbascum thapsus -Yareta -Ziziphus mistol
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Yareta
