Some cool animals that are extinct images:
Osage Orange, Bois D'Arc, Hedge Apple, Maclura pomifera...#6
Image by Vietnam Plants & The USA. plants
Taken on June 11, 2012 in Waco city, Texas state, Southern of America
Vietnamese named :
Common names : Osage Orange, Hedge Apple, Horse-apple, Bois D'Arc, Bodark, Bodock.
Scientist name : Maclura pomifera (Raf.) C.K. Schneid.
Synonyms :
Family : Moraceae / Mulberry family . Họ Dâu Tằm .
Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom : Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division : Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Hamamelididae
Order: Urticales
Genus: Maclura Nutt. – maclura
Species: Maclura pomifera (Raf.) C.K. Schneid. – osage orange
**** plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=MAPO
**** www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Maclura+pomifera : CLICK ON LINK TO READ MORE , please.
SynonymsM. aurantiaca. Toxylon pommifera.
Known Hazards The milky sap can cause dermatitis in some people[200]. An extract and the juice of the fruit is toxic, though a 10% aqueous infusion and extract diluted 1:1 are not toxic[240].
HabitatsWoods, fields and thickets in rich bottom lands[73, 83].
RangeSoutheastern N. America - Arkansas to Texas.
Edible Uses
One report suggests that the fruit is edible[74] but this is surely a mistake - although very large, the fruit is harsh, hard, dry and astringent. The fruit does, however, contain an anti-oxidant which can be used as a food preservative, especially for oils[61]. The heartwood and the root yield a non-toxic antibiotic that is useful as a food preservative[240].
Medicinal Uses
Plants For A Future can not take any responsibility for any adverse effects from the use of plants. Always seek advice from a professional before using a plant medicinally.
Cardiac; Ophthalmic.
A tea made from the roots has been used as a wash for sore eyes[222, 257]. The inedible fruits contain antioxidant and fungicidal compounds[222]. A 10% aqueous infusion and an extract diluted 1:1 have cardiovascular potentialities[240].
Other Uses
Dye; Fuel; Hedge; Hedge; Preservative; Repellent; Shelterbelt; Tannin; Wood.
A yellow dye is obtained from the bark of the root and the wood[46, 57, 95, 149, 169, 257]. Green and orange can also be obtained from it[168]. The sap of the fruit is used as an insect repellent[95]. It is said to be effective against cockroaches[222]. The bark is a source of tannin[82, 149]. The plant is often grown as a hedge in N. America and Europe[1, 20, 50], it is very tolerant of severe pruning[200], makes an effective stock-proof barrier[200] and succeeds in maritime exposure[K]. A hedge in a very exposed position at Rosewarne in N. Cornwall has grown well (1989), though it is very bare in winter[K]. This species is also used in shelterbelt plantings[200]. Wood - coarse-grained, exceedingly hard, heavy, flexible, very strong, very durable, silky, lustrous. It weighs 48lb per cubic foot. One of the most durable woods in N. America, it is seldom used commercially, but is used locally for fence posts,piers, bows etc and makes an excellent fuel[46, 82, 95, 171, 200, 227, 229, 274].
**** www.gpnc.org/osage.htm : CLICK ON LINK TO READ MORE, please.
Are Osage Oranges edible?
Chop one in half and you will see a pithy core surrounded by up to 200 small seeds (smaller than sunflower seeds) that are much sought-after by squirrels. Try to harvest these seeds for yourself and you will get a clear understanding of how much the squirrels must like them! In addition to ripping apart the tough, stringy fruit, there is a slimy husk around each individual seed that must also be removed before the seed can be eaten. Nonetheless, Osage Orange trees are a magnet for every squirrel in the neighborhood. They typically sit on the ground at the base of the tree or on a wide branch up in the tree to disassemble their prize, making a big mess in the process. Piles of shredded hedge apple are a sure sign of squirrels in the area.
The seeds are edible by people, but one must do like the squirrels and pick them out of the pulpy matrix and remove the slimy husk. This is the only part of the fruit that people can eat. Cattle are sometimes tempted to eat the fruit and may choke on them if they do not chew them up sufficiently.
Before the invention of barbed wire in the 1880's, many thousands of miles of hedge were constructed by planting young Osage Orange trees closely together in a line. The saplings were aggressively pruned to promote bushy growth. "Horse high, bull strong and hog tight." Those were the criteria for a good hedge made with Osage Orange. Tall enough that a horse would not jump it, stout enough that a bull would not push through it and woven so tightly that even a hog could not find its way through! After barbed wire made hedge fences obsolete, the trees still found use as a source of unbeatable fence posts. The wood is strong and so dense that it will neither rot nor succumb to the attacks of termites or other insects for decades. The trees also found use as an effective component of windbreaks and shelterbelts.
How do you grow Osage Oranges?
The tree is easily grown from the seeds, but it is a challenge to separate the seeds from the fruit. One technique for separating the seeds is to drop a fruit into a bucket of water and wait until it gets a little mushy, then do the separation. Late season freezes combined with damp conditions will accomplish the same task for ones left on the ground. Plant individual seeds taken from a fully mature fruit (wait until they start falling on the ground). You can start them in pots inside, but you can have good luck growing them outside in a planting bed too - its just more difficult to transplant them when they are started in the ground.
The trees will be either male or female, and only the females will produce hedge balls. The trees become sexually mature by age 10 and there is no easy way to determine the gender prior to then.
The trees can grow quickly in a good location with ideal growing conditions. They make a decent shade tree within ten years. If you are wanting to grow a hedgerow, plant them no more than five feet apart and plan to thin them as they get bigger.
If you are considering growing them, think twice and make sure you want to do this! The trees can spread and become a real problem in pastures. The thorny branches make pruning difficult, and the thorns can easily cause flat tires - even through the thick tread of a tractor tire. You certainly don't want to step on one barefoot!
**** en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maclura_pomifera : CLICK ON LINK TO READ MORE , please.
Osajin and Pomiferin are flavonoid pigments present in the wood and fruit, comprising about 10% of the fruit's dry weight. The plant also contains the flavonol morin.
It was once thought that placing an Osage orange under the bed would repel spiders and insects. This practice has declined with the rise of synthetic insecticides. However, scientific studies have found that extracts of Osage orange do repel several insect species, in some studies just as well as the widely-used synthetic insecticide DEET
...................................................................
Distribution
Osage-orange occurred historically in the Red River drainage of Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas and in the Blackland Prairies, Post Oak Savannas, and Chisos Mountains of Texas.[6] It has been widely naturalized in the United States and Ontario.
Ecological aspects
The fruit has a pleasant and mild odor, but is inedible for the most part. Although it is not strongly poisonous, eating it may cause vomiting. However, the seeds of the fruit are edible. The fruit is sometimes torn apart by squirrels to get at the seeds, but few other native animals make use of it as a food source. This is unusual, as most large fleshy fruit serves the function of seed dispersal by means of its consumption by large animals. One recent hypothesis is that the Osage-orange fruit was eaten by a giant ground sloth that became extinct shortly after the first human settlement of North America. Other extinct Pleistocene megafauna, such as the mammoth, mastodon and gomphothere, may have fed on the fruit and aided in seed dispersal.[7] An equine species that went extinct at the same time also has been suggested as the plant's original dispersal agent because modern horses and other livestock will sometimes eat the fruit
...............................................................................
Uses
The Osage-orange is commonly used as a tree row windbreak in prairie states, which gives it one of its colloquial names, "hedge apple". It was one of the primary trees used in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Great Plains Shelterbelt" WPA project, which was launched in 1934 as an ambitious plan to modify weather and prevent soil erosion in the Great Plains states, and by 1942 resulted in the planting of 30,233 shelterbelts containing 220 million trees that stretched for 18,600 miles (29,900 km).[9] The sharp-thorned trees were also planted as cattle-deterring hedges before the introduction of barbed wire and afterwards became an important source of fence posts.
The heavy, close-grained yellow-orange wood is very dense and is prized for tool handles, treenails, fence posts, and other applications requiring a strong dimensionally stable wood that withstands rot. Straight-grained osage timber (most is knotty and twisted) makes very good bows. In Arkansas, in the early 19th century, a good Osage bow was worth a horse and a blanket.[5] Additionally, a yellow-orange dye can be extracted from the wood, which can be used as a substitute for fustic and aniline dyes. When dried, the wood has the highest BTU content of any commonly available North American wood, and burns long and hot.[10][11]
The fruit was once used to repel spiders by placing one under the bed. Various studies have found elemol, an extract of Osage orange, to repel several species of mosquitos, cockroaches, crickets, and ticks.[12] One study found elemol to be as effective a mosquito repellant as DEET.[13] A patent was awarded in 2012 for an insect repelling device using Osage orange
History
The earliest account of the tree was given by William Dunbar, a Scottish explorer, in his narrative of a journey made in 1804 from St. Catherine's Landing on the Mississippi River to the Ouachita River.[5] It was a curiosity when Meriwether Lewis sent some slips and cuttings to President Jefferson in March 1804. The samples, donated by "Mr. Peter Choteau, who resided the greater portion of his time for many years with the Osage Nation" according to Lewis's letter, didn't take, but later the thorny Osage-orange was widely naturalized throughout the U.S.[15] In 1810, Bradbury relates that he found two trees growing in the garden of Pierre Chouteau, one of the first settlers of St. Louis (apparently "Peter Choteau").[5]
The trees acquired the name bois d'arc, or "bow-wood", from early French settlers who observed the wood being used for war clubs and bow-making by Native Americans.[5] Meriwether Lewis was told that the people of the Osage Nation "esteem the wood of this tree for the making of their bows, that they travel many hundred miles in quest of it." Many modern bowyers assert the wood of the Osage-orange is superior even to English Yew for this purpose, though this opinion is by no means unanimous. The trees are also known as "bodark" or "bodarc" trees, most likely originating from a corruption of "bois d'arc." The Comanches also used this wood for their bows.[16] It was popular with them because it is strong, flexible and durable. This tree was common along river bottoms of the Comanchería.
Osage Orange, Bois D'Arc, Hedge Apple, Maclura pomifera...# 10
Image by Vietnam Plants & The USA. plants
Taken on June 11, 2012 in Waco city, Texas state, Southern of America
Vietnamese named :
Common names : Osage Orange, Hedge Apple, Horse-apple, Bois D'Arc, Bodark, Bodock.
Scientist name : Maclura pomifera (Raf.) C.K. Schneid.
Synonyms :
Family : Moraceae / Mulberry family . Họ Dâu Tằm .
Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom : Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division : Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Hamamelididae
Order: Urticales
Genus: Maclura Nutt. – maclura
Species: Maclura pomifera (Raf.) C.K. Schneid. – osage orange
**** plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=MAPO
**** www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Maclura+pomifera : CLICK ON LINK TO READ MORE , please.
SynonymsM. aurantiaca. Toxylon pommifera.
Known Hazards The milky sap can cause dermatitis in some people[200]. An extract and the juice of the fruit is toxic, though a 10% aqueous infusion and extract diluted 1:1 are not toxic[240].
HabitatsWoods, fields and thickets in rich bottom lands[73, 83].
RangeSoutheastern N. America - Arkansas to Texas.
Edible Uses
One report suggests that the fruit is edible[74] but this is surely a mistake - although very large, the fruit is harsh, hard, dry and astringent. The fruit does, however, contain an anti-oxidant which can be used as a food preservative, especially for oils[61]. The heartwood and the root yield a non-toxic antibiotic that is useful as a food preservative[240].
Medicinal Uses
Plants For A Future can not take any responsibility for any adverse effects from the use of plants. Always seek advice from a professional before using a plant medicinally.
Cardiac; Ophthalmic.
A tea made from the roots has been used as a wash for sore eyes[222, 257]. The inedible fruits contain antioxidant and fungicidal compounds[222]. A 10% aqueous infusion and an extract diluted 1:1 have cardiovascular potentialities[240].
Other Uses
Dye; Fuel; Hedge; Hedge; Preservative; Repellent; Shelterbelt; Tannin; Wood.
A yellow dye is obtained from the bark of the root and the wood[46, 57, 95, 149, 169, 257]. Green and orange can also be obtained from it[168]. The sap of the fruit is used as an insect repellent[95]. It is said to be effective against cockroaches[222]. The bark is a source of tannin[82, 149]. The plant is often grown as a hedge in N. America and Europe[1, 20, 50], it is very tolerant of severe pruning[200], makes an effective stock-proof barrier[200] and succeeds in maritime exposure[K]. A hedge in a very exposed position at Rosewarne in N. Cornwall has grown well (1989), though it is very bare in winter[K]. This species is also used in shelterbelt plantings[200]. Wood - coarse-grained, exceedingly hard, heavy, flexible, very strong, very durable, silky, lustrous. It weighs 48lb per cubic foot. One of the most durable woods in N. America, it is seldom used commercially, but is used locally for fence posts,piers, bows etc and makes an excellent fuel[46, 82, 95, 171, 200, 227, 229, 274].
**** www.gpnc.org/osage.htm : CLICK ON LINK TO READ MORE, please.
Are Osage Oranges edible?
Chop one in half and you will see a pithy core surrounded by up to 200 small seeds (smaller than sunflower seeds) that are much sought-after by squirrels. Try to harvest these seeds for yourself and you will get a clear understanding of how much the squirrels must like them! In addition to ripping apart the tough, stringy fruit, there is a slimy husk around each individual seed that must also be removed before the seed can be eaten. Nonetheless, Osage Orange trees are a magnet for every squirrel in the neighborhood. They typically sit on the ground at the base of the tree or on a wide branch up in the tree to disassemble their prize, making a big mess in the process. Piles of shredded hedge apple are a sure sign of squirrels in the area.
The seeds are edible by people, but one must do like the squirrels and pick them out of the pulpy matrix and remove the slimy husk. This is the only part of the fruit that people can eat. Cattle are sometimes tempted to eat the fruit and may choke on them if they do not chew them up sufficiently.
Before the invention of barbed wire in the 1880's, many thousands of miles of hedge were constructed by planting young Osage Orange trees closely together in a line. The saplings were aggressively pruned to promote bushy growth. "Horse high, bull strong and hog tight." Those were the criteria for a good hedge made with Osage Orange. Tall enough that a horse would not jump it, stout enough that a bull would not push through it and woven so tightly that even a hog could not find its way through! After barbed wire made hedge fences obsolete, the trees still found use as a source of unbeatable fence posts. The wood is strong and so dense that it will neither rot nor succumb to the attacks of termites or other insects for decades. The trees also found use as an effective component of windbreaks and shelterbelts.
How do you grow Osage Oranges?
The tree is easily grown from the seeds, but it is a challenge to separate the seeds from the fruit. One technique for separating the seeds is to drop a fruit into a bucket of water and wait until it gets a little mushy, then do the separation. Late season freezes combined with damp conditions will accomplish the same task for ones left on the ground. Plant individual seeds taken from a fully mature fruit (wait until they start falling on the ground). You can start them in pots inside, but you can have good luck growing them outside in a planting bed too - its just more difficult to transplant them when they are started in the ground.
The trees will be either male or female, and only the females will produce hedge balls. The trees become sexually mature by age 10 and there is no easy way to determine the gender prior to then.
The trees can grow quickly in a good location with ideal growing conditions. They make a decent shade tree within ten years. If you are wanting to grow a hedgerow, plant them no more than five feet apart and plan to thin them as they get bigger.
If you are considering growing them, think twice and make sure you want to do this! The trees can spread and become a real problem in pastures. The thorny branches make pruning difficult, and the thorns can easily cause flat tires - even through the thick tread of a tractor tire. You certainly don't want to step on one barefoot!
**** en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maclura_pomifera : CLICK ON LINK TO READ MORE , please.
Osajin and Pomiferin are flavonoid pigments present in the wood and fruit, comprising about 10% of the fruit's dry weight. The plant also contains the flavonol morin.
It was once thought that placing an Osage orange under the bed would repel spiders and insects. This practice has declined with the rise of synthetic insecticides. However, scientific studies have found that extracts of Osage orange do repel several insect species, in some studies just as well as the widely-used synthetic insecticide DEET
...................................................................
Distribution
Osage-orange occurred historically in the Red River drainage of Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas and in the Blackland Prairies, Post Oak Savannas, and Chisos Mountains of Texas.[6] It has been widely naturalized in the United States and Ontario.
Ecological aspects
The fruit has a pleasant and mild odor, but is inedible for the most part. Although it is not strongly poisonous, eating it may cause vomiting. However, the seeds of the fruit are edible. The fruit is sometimes torn apart by squirrels to get at the seeds, but few other native animals make use of it as a food source. This is unusual, as most large fleshy fruit serves the function of seed dispersal by means of its consumption by large animals. One recent hypothesis is that the Osage-orange fruit was eaten by a giant ground sloth that became extinct shortly after the first human settlement of North America. Other extinct Pleistocene megafauna, such as the mammoth, mastodon and gomphothere, may have fed on the fruit and aided in seed dispersal.[7] An equine species that went extinct at the same time also has been suggested as the plant's original dispersal agent because modern horses and other livestock will sometimes eat the fruit
...............................................................................
Uses
The Osage-orange is commonly used as a tree row windbreak in prairie states, which gives it one of its colloquial names, "hedge apple". It was one of the primary trees used in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Great Plains Shelterbelt" WPA project, which was launched in 1934 as an ambitious plan to modify weather and prevent soil erosion in the Great Plains states, and by 1942 resulted in the planting of 30,233 shelterbelts containing 220 million trees that stretched for 18,600 miles (29,900 km).[9] The sharp-thorned trees were also planted as cattle-deterring hedges before the introduction of barbed wire and afterwards became an important source of fence posts.
The heavy, close-grained yellow-orange wood is very dense and is prized for tool handles, treenails, fence posts, and other applications requiring a strong dimensionally stable wood that withstands rot. Straight-grained osage timber (most is knotty and twisted) makes very good bows. In Arkansas, in the early 19th century, a good Osage bow was worth a horse and a blanket.[5] Additionally, a yellow-orange dye can be extracted from the wood, which can be used as a substitute for fustic and aniline dyes. When dried, the wood has the highest BTU content of any commonly available North American wood, and burns long and hot.[10][11]
The fruit was once used to repel spiders by placing one under the bed. Various studies have found elemol, an extract of Osage orange, to repel several species of mosquitos, cockroaches, crickets, and ticks.[12] One study found elemol to be as effective a mosquito repellant as DEET.[13] A patent was awarded in 2012 for an insect repelling device using Osage orange
History
The earliest account of the tree was given by William Dunbar, a Scottish explorer, in his narrative of a journey made in 1804 from St. Catherine's Landing on the Mississippi River to the Ouachita River.[5] It was a curiosity when Meriwether Lewis sent some slips and cuttings to President Jefferson in March 1804. The samples, donated by "Mr. Peter Choteau, who resided the greater portion of his time for many years with the Osage Nation" according to Lewis's letter, didn't take, but later the thorny Osage-orange was widely naturalized throughout the U.S.[15] In 1810, Bradbury relates that he found two trees growing in the garden of Pierre Chouteau, one of the first settlers of St. Louis (apparently "Peter Choteau").[5]
The trees acquired the name bois d'arc, or "bow-wood", from early French settlers who observed the wood being used for war clubs and bow-making by Native Americans.[5] Meriwether Lewis was told that the people of the Osage Nation "esteem the wood of this tree for the making of their bows, that they travel many hundred miles in quest of it." Many modern bowyers assert the wood of the Osage-orange is superior even to English Yew for this purpose, though this opinion is by no means unanimous. The trees are also known as "bodark" or "bodarc" trees, most likely originating from a corruption of "bois d'arc." The Comanches also used this wood for their bows.[16] It was popular with them because it is strong, flexible and durable. This tree was common along river bottoms of the Comanchería.
Hillside tombs
Image by wallygrom
Colca Canyon, seen from the Cruz del Condor mirador ...
From Wikipedia -
Colca Canyon is a canyon of the Colca River in southern Peru. It is located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Arequipa. It is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States at 4,160 m., and it is promoted as the "world's deepest canyon," although the canyon's walls are not as vertical as those of the Grand Canyon. The Colca Valley is a colorful Andean valley with towns founded in Spanish Colonial times, and still inhabited by people of the Collaguas and the Cabanas cultures. The local people still maintain ancestral traditions and continue to cultivate the pre-Inca stepped terraces.
he Colca River starts high in the Andes at Condorama Crucero Alto; below the Colca canyon, as it crosses the plains of Majes it is known as the Majes River, and then is known as the Camana before reaching the Pacific Ocean at the town of that name. Parts of the canyon are habitable, and Inca and pre-Inca terraces are still cultivated along the less precipitous canyon walls. The small town of Chivay is on the upper Colca River, where the canyon is not so deep but where many terraces are present in the canyon, continuing for many kilometers downstream. As the canyon deepens downriver, a series of small villages is spread out over the approximately 35 miles (56 km) between Chivay and the village of Cabanaconde. The canyon reaches its greatest depth in the region of Huambo, where the river has an elevation of 3,497-ft (1,066-m); in contrast, about 15 miles (24 km) to the southeast of Cabanaconde rises the 20,630-ft (6,288-m) Nevado Ampato, a snow-capped extinct volcano.
The valley lies between the Callalli and Huambo districts of the Caylloma Province.
The canyon is home to the Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus), a species that has seen worldwide effort to preserve it. The condors can be seen at fairly close range as they fly past the canyon walls, and are an increasingly popular attraction. 'Cruz del Condor' is a popular tourist stop to view the condors, an overlook where condors soar gracefully on thermals of warm rising from the canyon. The condors are best seen in the early morning, and late afternoon when they are hunting. At this point the canyon floor is 3,960 ft (1,200 m) below the rim of the canyon.
Other notable bird species present in the Colca include the Giant Colibri, the largest member of the hummingbird family; the Andean Goose; Chilean Flamingo; and Mountain Caracara. Animals include the vizcacha, a rabbit-sized relative of the chinchilla; zorrino, a member of the skunk family; deer; fox; and vicuna, the wild ancestor of the alpaca.
The La Calera natural hot springs are located at Chivay, the biggest town in the Colca Canyon. Other hot springs, some developed for tourist use, are dotted throughout the valley and canyon.
Archeological sites include: the caves of Mollepunko, above Callalli, where rock art (said to be 6,000 years old) depicts the domestication of the alpaca; the mummy of Paraqra, above Sibayo; the Fortaleza de Chimpa, a reconstructed mountaintop citadel below Madrigal; ruins of pre-Hispanic settlements throughout the valley; and many others.
Activities include hiking, mountain biking, trekking, mountaineering, rafting, fishing, and sightseeing.
Cultural attractions: festivals throughout the year, including the Wititi festival in Chivay, December 8-11; the Wititi has been declared the dance most representative of the Arequipa region, and named as a "cultural heritage" of Peru. The Colca is also well-known for two forms of crafts: goods knitted from 100% baby alpaca fiber (hats, gloves, etc.), and a unique form of embroidery that adorns skirts (polleras), hats, vests, and other items of daily wear and use.
Other attractions: the most distant source of the Amazon River is accessible from the Colca valley via Tuti, a one-day trip to a spring at 16,800-ft (5,120-m), where snowmelt from Nevado Mismi bursts from a rock face; the Infiernillo geyser, on the flanks of Nevado Huallca Huallca, accessible on foot, horseback, or mountain bicycle; and a number of "casas vivenciales," where tourists can stay with a local family in their home, and share in their daily activities.
Autocolca, an autonomous authority created by law in the 1980's, is responsible for tourism promotion and management in the Colca valley; they require purchase of a "tourist ticket" currently valued at 35 Nuevos Soles (roughly .50) from foreign visitors, half that for Peruvian nationals, to enter the Colca tourist zone.
The name Colca refers to small granaries of mud and stone, built into the cliffs in the valley and canyon. These repositories were used in Inca and pre-Inca times to store food, such as potatoes, quinoa, and other Andean crops. They were also used as tombs for important people.
The quechua-speaking Cabanas, probably descended from the Wari culture, and the Aymara-speaking Collaguas, who moved to the area from the Lake Titicaca region, inhabited the valley in the pre-Inca era. The Inca probably arrived in the Colca valley around 1320 AD, and established their dominion through marriage, rather than through warfare. The Spaniards, under Gonzalo Pizarro, arrived in 1540, and in the 1570's the Spanish viceroy Francisco de Toledo ordered the inhabitants to leave their scattered settlements and to move to a series of centrally-located pueblos, which remain the principal towns of the valley. Franciscan missionaries built the first chapel in the valley in 1565, and the first church in 1569 (Coporaque).
No passable roads existed between Arequipa and Chivay until the 1940's, when a road was completed to serve the silver and copper mines of the region. In the 1970s and 80's, the Majes Hydroelectric Project--which diverted water from the Colca River to irrigate crops in the Majes region--built roads within the valley, and opened the area to outsiders. Access today is usually via Arequipa.
In May of 1981, the Polish "Canoandes" rafting expedition made the first descent of the river below Cabanaconde, and proclaimed the possibility of its being the world's deepest canyon. It was so recognized by the Guinness Book of Records in 1986, and a National Geographic article in January of 1993 repeated the claim. The joint Polish/Peruvian "Cañon del Colca 2005" expedition verified the altitudes of the river and the surrounding heights via GPS in 2005.
Tourism has exploded since the publicity of the 1980's and 1990's, increasing from a few thousand visitors annually, to nearly 150,000 visitors in 2010.
