Dr. Ezcurra received her doctorate in Biological sciences in 1982. Today she is a botanist interested in the origin and evolution of the flora of the Andes and Patagonia. Cecilia is also a specialist in the taxonomy of several plant families that are important because of their diversity in southern South America. She has published scientific papers on Andean plants and vegetation, and has written contributions to books such as Flora Patagonica, Flora de Jujuy, Flora de San Juan, and Plantas del Nahuel Huapi.

More than 50 of her works have appeared in scientific publications such as Annals of Missouri Botanical Garden (United States), Brittonia (United States), Darwiniana (Argentina), Systematic Botany (united States), Canadian Journal of Botany (Canada), Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society (England), Journal of Vegetation Science (Sweden), Botanical Review (United States) etc.

She has also worked as botanical illustrator and loves to walk in the Patagonian mountains identifying and interpreting plants from forest, steppe and alpine environments.

The Lenga Forest

The humid Patagonian Andes are covered by forests dominated by trees of Nothofagus. This unique plant genus is distributed only in the southern hemisphere, mostly in temperate areas of Australia, New Zealand and South America that long ago were connected through Antarctica as part of Gondwanaland. Nothofagus forests are remnants of an antique Antarctic flora that disappeared some millions of years ago covered by the ice of the Southern Pole glaciations.

On the higher elevations of the Patagonian mountains a special forest is found, the "lenga" woods of the cold-adapted Nothofagus pumilio trees, whose foliage turn red and orange in autumn before shedding their leaves. In some areas these unique woods are formed by huge ancient trees with branches hanging with lichens and populated by incredibly tame birds, such as the large Patagonian red-headed woodpecker. In contact with the alpine zone this forest forms an intricate krummholz of stunted, crooked trees that spread over the rocky environment.

The under story of the "lenga" forest is covered by beautiful flowers such as the yellow "amancay" (Alstroemeria aurea) that form tapestries of golden color. The beauty of this species, endemic of these southern South American forests, is renowned: this lily has produced many colored striking cultivars that are now used for floral arrangements all around the world. Over the forests, in the windblown harsh alpine environment, many species of rare, unique wildflowers can also be found.

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