Central and South America - Vegetation South America's rich variety of wild flora offers corn species, wild peppers, fruits such as the tomato, and root crops and tubers like the potato, but these are distributed in geographically-isolated areas.There is plenty of timber in the lowland and temperate areas; highlands offer some metal ores and plenty of stone. The fertile land of the South American highlands is possible to cultivate but will need to be heavily terraced and possibly irrigated. But bordered by mountains and rainforest, these cultures and their founder crops and technologies never spread Panama - and the Inca remained chronically isolated from their neighbours in modern-day Mexico. Back | Next