What kind of plants are on Easter Island?

What kind of plants are on Easter Island?

Grass and small ferns dominate the barren landscape, whereas the boggy crater lakes are thickly covered by two imported American species, the totora reed (an important building material) and Polygonum acuminatum (a medicinal plant).

What trees are native to Easter Island?

Just less than 10 years ago, Chile’s forest authority CONAF began planting the salt-resistant aito tree, which is native to Polynesian islands, on Easter Island. The species, also known as toa or ironwood, was considered sacred to the local culture and traditionally planted in places of worship.

What type of vegetation exists on Easter Island today?

Today, the island is almost completely grass-covered, except for a few isolated stands of ornamental trees and shrubs. In fact, it was almost treeless when first visited by Europeans in the early eighteenth century.

What invasive species were on Easter Island?

Anthropologist Terry Hunt and colleagues say that introduced Polynesian rats may have caused the deforestation of the island’s 16 million palm trees which were key to sustaining Easter’s human population.

What were trees used for on Easter Island?

It was used by Easter Island’s early colonisers for many purposes, e.g. statuettes (moai kava kava), oars and even canoes. The islanders contributed greatly themselves in this way to their favourite tree’s extinction. When the island was “discovered” by Europeans on Easter Day 1722, the tree was quite rare.

Is Easter Island a grassland?

Grasslands present on the island can be divided into two types: 1. Very low grasslands, with high species diversity, overgrazed by livestock, especially horses. 2. Higher grasslands composed almost exclusively of Melinis minutiflora .

Did rats destroy Easter Island?

Although Easter Island has long been held to be the most important example of a traditional society destroying itself, it appears that the real culprits were rats – up to three million of them.

Do the Easter Island heads have bodies underground?

The World-Famous Easter Island Heads Have Bodies Buried Underground. Crafted by the Rapa Nui people between 1250 and 1500, these monumental sculptures have been shrouded in mystery for centuries.

What trees grow on Easter Island?

On Rapa Nui, the more modern, and local, name for Easter Island, large palm forests flourished. Upon arrival, early Rapanui settlers would have planted the plants that they brought with them: banana trees, taro root, and perhaps even the sweet potato.

Are there any trees on Easter Island?

Easter Island is considered a distinct eco-region by ecologists. At the time of its initial colonization, the island is believed to have been dominated by large broadleaf forests and palm. Today, however, Easter Island has very few trees and is mainly covered with grasses and shrubs.

What animals live on Easter Island?

Easter Islands wildlife and flora The island’s fauna is mainly comprised of animals familiar to Westerners: semi-wild horses roaming the hills, rabbits, and herds of cattle.

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