Flora of Chile - Northern Chile

Northern Chile

The first is an arid desert absolutely barren along part of the coast, between Arica and Copiapó, but with a coarse scanty vegetation near the Cordilleras along watercourses and on the slopes where moisture from the melting snows above percolates through the sand.

The altiplano of the northernmost portion of the Chilean territory is home to the Browningia candelaris, a candelabrum-shaped cactus. Another cactus species, the Echinopsis atacamensis, grows in the pre-Andean area. The high Andean region is also characterized by the presence of species of the genus Polylepis and the Azorella compacta. Cacti occur in the coastal desert. Here, the most common species are those of the genus Copiapoa, which are recognizable by their distinctive shapes.

A endemic tree of the Norte Grande is the Prosopis tamarugo. It grows mainly in the Pampa del Tamarugal. South of Loa River and west of Cordillera Domeyko, the Atacama Desert is completely destitute of vegetation.

In the valleys of the Copiapó and Huasco rivers a meagre vegetation is to be found near their channels, apart from what is produced by irrigation, but the surface of the plateau and the dry. river channels below the sierras are completely barren. Continuing southward into the Coquimbo Region a gradual change in the arid conditions may be observed. The higher summits of the Andes afford a larger and more continuous supply of water, and so dependent are the people in the cultivated river valleys on this source of water supply that they watch for snowstorms in the Cordilleras as an indication of what the coming season is to be. The arborescent growth near the mountains is larger and more vigorous, in which are to be found the "algarrobo" (Prosopis chilensis) and "chañar" (Geoffroea decorticans), but the only shrub to be found on the coast is a species of Skytanthus.

Proceeding southward cacti become common, first a dwarfed species, and then a larger columnar form (Echinopsis chiloensis). The streams are fringed with willows; fruit trees and alfalfa fields fill the irrigated valleys, and the lower mountain slopes are better covered with a thorny arborescent growth. The divides between the streams, however, continue barren as far south as the transverse ranges of mountains across the province of Aconcagua.