Chile 6 - Patagonia

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This blog covers the last few days of my holiday in Chile.

After the rain forests at Puerto Montt, we flew south to Patagonia. The thing you remember here is the wind! It is relentless and strong, so much so you need to have your ears covered for much of the time. Most of Patagonia is very flat but there are some mountainous areas and it was to these we headed for our final lodgings. This was the view outside the chalets

Two very similar shrubs to be found here are escallonia alpina

and escallonia rubra

It may be they are just the same shrub with variations in the flower colour

We had seen several violas with yellow flowers during the trip, but viola maculata is readily identified by its pointed leaves

Olsynium biflorum grows a couple of feet tall in open places. Despite the name, it carries up to seven flowers on each stem

Hypochaeris incana is much shorter and reminds me of a white dandelion

There are two very distinct caleolarias growing on the sides of the mountains. This is calceolaria biflora, known locally as Ladies Slipper

Calceolaria uniflora is easy to recognise – there is nothing like it. It grew on open, windswept hillsides, facing south (so receiving little or no direct sun) in soil that was constantly moist but not waterlogged – not an easy environment to replicate in cultivation

Also growing in moist spots were large colonies of geum magellanica

We only found one plant of solenomelus segethii, a small bulb in the iris family. These are closely related to sisyrinchiums (which we also saw)

Another rarity was the alpine, alstroemeria patagonica, related to alstroemeria ligtu grown in British gardens. We found just one small group growing near the top of a hill

Despite the forecast of rain, we had four dry days in Patagonia. There were only two wet days during the entire trip (and one of those was mainly spent travelling in the van). We saw a huge number of plants in flower and only two evaded us from our initial lists. I had hoped to finish with the obligatory sunset picture but we never saw a really good one, so instead I’ll leave you with my enduring memory of Chile, the land of fire and ice

(with thanks to R.Horswood who supplied four of these photos after my camera played up)

• 28 Jan, 2011
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