This is just a brief note of what I hope to write up for a future issue of the "Rock Garden Quarterly." Apologies to the editors of "Bulbs" and "The Bulb Garden," but the one I edit is first in line! I have just returned from three weeks traveling in Chile, mostly north of Santiago in Regions II, III, and IV -- from Valparaiso in the south, to Antofogasta in the north. Since I was traveling with someone who had little interest in plants but wished to find interesting minerals, we had to make some forays into the interior; however, most of the interesting plants I saw were near the coast. Later in the year, there is much to see in the Andes, but this time I saw only a few (but good) snowmelt plants in bloom there. The vegetation of the coastal strip is supported by moisture from fogs, which enveloped us much of the time we were there. As a former San Franciscan I don't mind being in fog, but my traveling companion found it offensive and complained a lot about my wish to remain in that area. Elsewhere, rain is infrequent, but this year there were unusually heavy rains triggered by El Nino. This stimulates the phenomenon known as the Desierto Florido 'flowering desert', much as wet winters do in the deserts of southern California. Where the terrain had not been entirely degraded by grazing, large fields of flowers, many of them annuals, swept on to the horizon. Most prominent were magenta Calandrinia speciosa and similar tall species, rose-pink Cristaria (Malvaceae) species, and Argylia radiata, a yellow/brown/orange member of the Bignoniaceae. Many cacti were also in flower and I was particularly taken with Copiapoa cinerascens, a large grayish ball cactus. The genus Nolana (Nolanaceae, but similar to Convolvulus of Petunia in flower form) is remarkably varied here, from superb foliage mats with insignificant flowers, to trailing plants with huge showy pale or bright blue blossoms, to subshrubs. All these plants would be suitable for coastal California. The most rewarding part in terms of geophytes was the wealth of Alstroemeria species. I photographed A. kingii, paupercula, leporina, sierrae, two subspecies of A. pulchra, and one with bright green succulent leaves that I have not identified yet. In the Andean precordillera I saw emerging plants that I supposed to be A. pallida, A. umbellata, and one of the small ones with very twisted leaves. I don't know if Aristolochia can be considered a geophyte, but it was fascinating to see A. chilensis in both dark brown and yellow-green forms, the latter near the coast the former more inland. There were fields dotted with hundreds of thousands of Rhodophiala bagnoldii, a large yellow-flowered species. R. laeta is supposed to be in the area, and its photographs were often displayed in hotels, etc., but when I asked where it grew, the answer was always "Around [place somewhere else]." Leucocoryne coquimbensis was common in both white and pale blue forms. I also saw L. violascens and L. ixioides. A similar plant but much more impressive was Calydorea xiphioides, with bright violet, gold-centered large flowers. I saw it in only one spot and the plant manual says it is becoming rare because of being dug for its edible bulbs. Pasithea caerulea, a rather tall, robust plant with cobalt-blue flowers, grows both on the coast in fairly far inland. The inland plants I saw seemed larger. This is definitely one to try in gardens. Every trip has a "grail" plant and this one was Leontochir ovallei, an Alstroemeria relative, monotypic genus, and rare endemic. It grows in Parque Nacional Pan de Azucar, and I found it growing from a crevice in a rocky side canyon, fortunately in perfect bloom. With half a roll of film devoted to it, I hope at least one photo turns out well.... It resembles a lax-stemmed Alstro, very leafy, with the flowers in a congested umbel. They are deep red and tubular; yellow forms also exist. Its rarity must be due in part to grazing animals, especially goats, which are the bane of the Chilean flora. Jane McGary NW Oregon