Description

The title of "Garden of Brazil" given by the landscaper Burle Marx to Serra do Cipó, in 1950, does justice to one of the most exuberant natural sets on the planet.

The region has enchanted travelers, naturalists, current tourists and its residents for centuries, who rediscover it on a daily basis and become aware of its uniqueness. The rugged topography and the large number of springs form several rivers, waterfalls, canyons and caves of exceptional natural beauty.

With altitudes that vary between 700 and 1,670 meters, Serra do Cipó is located in the southern portion of Serra do Espinhaço, an important divider between two major Brazilian river basins: the São Francisco and the Rio Doce. No attribute characterizes Serra do Cipó better than its diversity, which begins in its geology with a wide variety of limestone, quartzite, granite and soil varieties. The rugged relief offers so many paths to the streams that spring from everywhere, culminating in the climatic differences between the slopes to the east and west.

This whole base made available to evolution has culminated in one of the most diverse floras on the planet, with a very high degree of endemism, one of the highest in the world, and with more than 1,700 species already registered. Also surprising, in the midst of diversity, is the similarity of forms between many species - some for having reached the same evolutionary solution to the challenges of the environment, others revealing the still recent time of separation between species. Such a landscape is inhabited by a very rich fauna, especially insects, an enormous wealth yet to be known, by dozens of amphibians that enjoy the infinity of pools, springs and streams; in addition to birds, mammals, reptiles and an immensity of other forms that coexist in a mountainous environment originated with the uplift of the Espinhaço Range hundreds of millions of years ago.