In May 2018, I had the pleasure to travel with Carla Black and Angel Rodriguez to Narino in south-west Colombia. Last year, we were in north-west Ecuador looking across the river into Colombia, wondering what might be growing there. This year we had a good look around and found some interesting plants. Narino department has had its issues with security in the past few decades and travelling there hasn't been recommended. With the peace agreement now in place, times have changed and we had only positive experiences in the time we spent there.

The main road that heads down from the high mountain city of Pasto to the coast at Tumaco is really the only road you can take to experience various elevations, a requisite for seeing plenty of different species. I spent a lot of time on Google Earth and looking at local maps for different roads to get out and about on. Once on the ground, we unfortunately realised that the routes I had found on those maps are really only tracks for horses or motorcycles. Our Colombian nature travel bible, 'Birdwatching in Colombia', mentioned three different protected forest reserve areas accessible from the road, and so we did our best to make contact with their park authorities prior to visiting. The highest at 1850m is La Planada Reserve (Fig.l). Thankfully we were able to make contact, with only a slight misunderstanding. We learned at the last minute there's a new road and we didn't have to walk 6 kilometres into the reserve with all our gear! We ended up staying for three comfortable nights, although the cold shower at that elevation meant you had to get in and out quick while you were still warm from the walking--as we did on the many trails.

As we drove into the reserve centre, I was already trying to get out of the moving car as we had driven past what I thought were red guzmanias and also flowering Guzmania pearcei growing alongside the entry road (Fig. 2). After booking in with our Awa hosts, I ducked back outside and discovered what I thought were the guzmanias were in fact Pitcairnia luteyniorum. A red flowered species with red bracts that was described from this particular locality back in the early 1980's.

Also growing at the 1850m elevation of the lodge, was Guzmania testudinis, a species we saw growing across the border last year at similar elevation. We took a long walk down to the river at the back of the reserve, down to below 1600m, and saw flowering plants of Guzmania wittmackii with orange bracts and yellow flowers. Also spotted in flower along the track were the orange flowered Pitcairnia bakeri and the white flowered Pitcairnia brongniartiana. Growing close to the creek was Pitcairnia derooseii, an attractive plant with orange red bracts and orange flowers. This plant was growing epiphytically up a tree to 2m high before it produced flowers.

Over the next couple of days we walked other trails...