170 SOUTH AMERICA 



berry, escallonias, and other shrubs. The upper alpine belt 

 consists of perennial herbs scattered on gravel and rocks. 



Extreme South and Fuegia. The forest region con- 

 tinues uninterruptedly down to the extreme point of 

 Fuegia, on the western slopes, and though retaining its 

 evergreen character in spite of the high latitude, it 

 becomes poorer and poorer both in size and variet}^. 

 The same small-leaf green beeches spread to the farthest 

 south with the drimys tree, but tree ferns, lianas, 

 epiphytes, and bambus disappear, and with them the 

 warm-temperate luxuriance. Now the forests are dark 

 and damp, somewhat resembling our spruce forests, 

 and under their heavy canopy there is only a thick litter 

 of rotten wood, with a soaked carpet of mosses and 

 liverworts, some ferns, and a scanty undergrowth. Like 

 the preceding, the south Chilian region remains an 

 important timber asset, but on account of the steep and 

 broken nature of the ground cannot be put to other uses. 



Punas. The higher plateaus that stretch between the 

 Cordilleras of the Andes, with their abrupt and extreme 

 alternations of heat and cold, their scanty rainfall, and 

 their dry, icy winds, receive the name of ' punas '. They 

 are vast wastes of rocks and salt, the worst types of 

 which are absolutely bare, while others are strewn with 

 the ' ichu ' feather-grass in dry, bristling tufts : bulbs, 

 rosette- and cushion-plants, and alpine bushes are also 

 characteristic. Some punas at a lower level, like that 

 of Jujuy in Argentine, are treeless grass- lands of a dry, 

 yet more prosperous and useful, description. 



The punas are very thinly inhabited, for vast tracts are 

 wholly desert. They cannot be utilized for agriculture, 

 or even for grazing purposes to any large extent, except 

 in some sheltered corners. The native camel, the llama, 

 alone finds a scanty food, and it is used as a pack animal. 



