39 
The Flora of the Basen of Atacama. 
By Tuos. Moronac. 
Under the old geographical limits, before Chile had appropri- 
ated as a war indemnity the whole of Bolivia’s seacoast and three 
degrees of Peruvian soil, the desert of Atacama was figured as 
extending from Coquimbo on the south to Bolivia on the north 
and eastward from the Pacific Ocean to the Andes, being nearly 
coincident with the province of the same name in Chile. So far, 
‘however, as the natural features are concerned, the name might 
well be applied to the entire region lying between Valparaiso and 
Ecquador, for it is all a desert broken only by lofty mountain 
peaks and deep valleys, the beds of ancient rivers, and watered 
here and there by scanty streams derived from the melting of the 
snows upon the high Cordilleras. The water from this source is 
carefully husbanded by the inhabitants of the valleys, and used 
in irrigation for agricultural purposes. Very little of it goes to 
produce the flora referred to in this article, by far the greater part 
of which belongs exclusively to the desert proper. 
It seems like a contradiction in terms to speak of a desert 
vegetation, and especially one upon a territory so bleak and deso- 
late as the Atacama, which is distinguished by the number of its. 
hideously barren hills of rock and its sandy wastes. And yet 
this desert bears a flora quite extensive in the number of its species 
and very peculiar and interesting in its character. Over 500 
species of plants have been gathered within its borders, and — 
probably as many more might be detected upon a close research. 
One naturally wonders by what chance such a flora can be 
brought into existence and how it can live after being once 
started. In explanation it must be said that this region is not 
absolutely rainless, although it is nearly so. There is an occasional 
winter rain, or rarely two or three showers in the course ofa 
winter, occurring at long intervals. Generally such rains are 
barely enough to moisten the ground, but that little is sufficient to 
cause the seeds, which are lying dormant in the sand or the bulbs 
beneath the ground, to germinate. Once up the seedling is kept 
alive by the dews which fall nightly upon the earth, and by the 
