DUSEN I THE VEGETATION OF WESTERN PATAGONIA. 5 



A species of Chnsqnea, different from the insular species and probably 

 C. quila Kunth, 1 occurs in the northernmost part of the mainland of west 

 Patagonia, reaching, according to Dr. Steffen, 2 its southern limit at the 

 Ofqui-ness. Whether this species actually occurs in the littoral districts, 

 I do not know, but very much doubt its occurrence there. On the other 

 hand, it is met with in enormous masses in the transverse valleys of the 

 Cordillera, where it constitutes the great bulk of the undergrowth and is 

 the chief obstruction to the traveller. This occurrence in masses is suffi- 

 cient reason for setting apart these valleys as a separate section of the 

 community of evergreen beeches, but there are other reasons also. One is 

 that the forests here are thin or open, which makes them look like parks, 

 and to this may be added that the ground lacks that very dense covering 

 of mosses which, in the archipelago and littoral, is such an extremely 

 characteristic feature of the vegetation. From the most representative 

 plant of these transverse valleys this subsection of the evergreen beech 

 forests may be termed the Quila formation. 



Lastly and before proceeding to give an account of the different species 

 that are to be found in these forests, I wish to point out their great like- 

 ness to the forests of the Tropics, especially in the north of ^Patagonia and, 

 above all, in the Quila formation. These forests are mixed ones, their trees 

 being evergreen with coriaceous leaves ; but their undergrowth of bam- 

 boo-like grasses, the occurrence of epiphytic phanerogam^, the number of 

 ferns, especially of Hymenophyllacece, and mosses of the genera Pilotri- 

 cJiclIa and Cyathophorum, frequently in luxuriant festoons hanging from 

 the branches, give to the forests an appearance very similar to the pri- 

 meval forests of the tropical regions. 



i. THE VEGETATION OF THE SOUTHERN SECTION OF 

 WESTERN PATAGONIA. 



Although, as I have already mentioned, I include together all the 

 islands of the archipelago and the coast of the mainland, in one whole, 



1 It is stated (Cf. Frombling : Ueber botanische Excursionen wahrend eines dreijahrigen Aufen- 

 thalt in Chile : Botan. Centralblatt, Jahrg. XVI) that the Chusquca grasses flower but once in 

 three or four years, and, strange to say, all the individuals in a large district are in flower at the 

 same time. Of the species found by me in western Patagonia not one was in bloom and trust- 

 worthy identification was therefore impossible. 



2 Stcffen, H. Reisen in den Patagonischen Anden : Verhandl. d. Ges. fur Erdkunde zu Berlin, 

 1900, No. 4, p. 220. 



