Palms of Peru: A Photo Tour from the Amazon Basin to the High Andes

In September 2025 the International Palm Society held a directors’ meeting near Iquitos, Peru followed by an expedition to the western rim of Amazonia high in the Andes Mountains. In conjunction with the meeting, Mary Lock and I spent a month exploring several nature reserves in low and high elevation rainforests in northeast Peru searching out and photographing palms, mammals and birds. This presentation features photos from that trip of some of the most charismatic palms and landscapes of the Peruvian Amazon including forests of towering Mauritia flexuosa and Ceroxylon quindiuense, charming understory Geonoma palms with large paddle-like leaves, and the fan palms Chelyocarpus repensand Itaya amicorum with striking pinwheel leaves - South America’s answer toLicuala. A few photos of Amazonian wildlife and scenery help to flesh out the extraordinary habitats of these amazing palms.

About Michael Lock

Michael Lock earned a bachelor’s degree in Ecology from the University of California, San Diego followed by a PhD in Biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley. He spent three decades in health-related research on algorithms for disease diagnosis, vaccines for developing countries and medicines for rare childhood diseases. Recently, with the help of the IPS, he has been able to return to ecology in general and tropical palms in particular. He has traveled and photographed extensively in Central and South America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands and has grown hundreds of palms in Hawaiian gardens.