Vegetação Campestre do Planalto Meridional do Brasil

Resumo

Professor Edgar Kuhlman, after making a history of the principal studies made about the grassland of the south on Brazil, makes general considerations upon the origin of the prairies and forests of that region.

The author attempts to explain the existence of the "cerrados" - shrub forests - in the south of Brazil and presents a study of the clean prairies explored by him. These clean prairies are classified as follow:

1. Clean Prairie of Castro: situated in the vicinity of the town of Castro, in the State of Paraná, which has a great uniformity and an upper stratus of 50 cm.
2. Clean Prairie of Palmeira: with high grasses - Aristida and Andropogon - and an upper stratus of one meter.
3. Clean Prairie of Palmas: excellent high region for livestock, covered with low homogeneous grass, having an upper sinusia of thirty to 40 cm.
4. Clean Prairie with Butiás: which is found in the State of Santa Catarina and shows some little palm trees called Butiá - Butia sp. -, isolated or in little groups.
5. Clean Prairie of the River Irani: also in the State of Santa Catarina, which presents regions with open woods of araucaria - Araucaria angustifolia -, on the grass covered land.
6. Clean Prairie of Erechim: close to the town of Erechim, in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, having a low cover of grass, about 25 cm, called “barba de bode” - Aristida palens.
7. Clean Prairie of Passo Fundo: near the town of same name, presenting a soil of great depth and therefor the grass cover is dense and continuous, showing a predominance of the grass “barba de bode”.
8. Clean Prairie of Lagoa Vermelha: little patches of grassland in the Araucária Forest, having many different kind of grasses with a predominance of the grass carqueja - Baccharis genisteloides.