THE VEGETATION OK THE JUAN I-ERNANDKZ ISLANDS 



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Fig. 37. Ruined forest in Quebrada de las Chozas, Masafuera. — Photo 3/3 1917. 



ber had been built in some of the valleys (PI. 104: i), and in some sites aband- 

 oned potato fields and garden plots, where a new weed flora was well established, 

 were seen. Fig. 37 shows a grove, intact in 1908 but now completely ruined. 

 And once destroyed, the forest does not come back; native ferns, Anthoxanthum 

 and other introduced herbs and grasses rapidly invade the clearings, and tree 

 seedlings may fall a victim to the innumerable goats. Erosion had begun its 

 work in many places. The speed with which this procedure goes on was illu- 

 strated along the zig-zag roads built on the steep walls of the Casas valley from 

 the base station to the dwelling sites of the convicts; parts of the road-track had 

 already been carried off by land-slides. A few years after our visit in 191 7 the 

 settlement was occupied a second time, but soon abandoned, and probably more 

 damage was done. The island is now part of the Juan Fernandez National Park 

 and will, I suppose, remain uninhabited. There can be little doubt that ever since 

 the Spanish settlement on Masatierra was founded, people from there have gone 

 to Masafuera just as the fishermen still do, roaming the ridges and table-land 

 to look for goats and setting fire to the grass. 



Maqui was seen by us in some of the valleys, but a macal like those in 

 Masatierra was observed only in Quebrada del Blindado, where there was a thick 

 grove at about 400 m above sea-level: here the luma forest [Myrceugenia Schulzei) 

 begins. In the deepest valleys, Casas, Vacas and Varadero, scattered trees appear a 



