Mark Akimoff and I have just returned from 2 weeks in central Chile. The country is experiencing a severe drought, with associated overgrazing of the few sites that retain moisture, so we didn't see the range of plants I had seen when visiting these sites in other years. However, some geophytes were flowering bravely. At La Parva, a ski area above Santiago, many Rhodolirion (or Rhodolirium) were in full bloom. I don't know the current name of this species, which used to be Rhodophiala rhodolirion. Elsewhere we saw Rhodophiala andicola (deep pink) and R. montana (yellow). Alstroemeria umbellata and A. exserens appeared well also above Santiago, and A. aurea was frequent in the lake district to the south. We found Tropaeolum polyphyllum and probably T. sessilifolium in the Santiago ski areas, flowering in vertical crevices where the cattle could not get at them. Sisyrinchium spp. also were doing well. However, cattle and goats had eaten everything that's not spiny or poisonous, or too tiny to notice (e.g. Chaetanthera); I hope the rhizomes and bulbs survive several years of such mistreatment and emerge once more. A lot of Chile's many national parks and reserves are grazed, despite prominent signs promoting environmental consciousness. In addition, the ski areas, which used to be a great resource for summer botanizing, are now far more developed than when I began visiting them in the late 1990s. Another disappointment was the Termas de Chillan, where an earthquake a few years ago caused a massive landslide that took out the old spa hotel (now replaced by an ugly modern one) and rerouted the stream above it, where one could once see a beautiful flora. The formerly walkable slope that hosted a remarkably varied population of Alstroemeria aurea is now very steep. At this time of year I would have expected some of these amaryllids to be in seed rather than in flower, particularly because we were told that the snow had melted in October or even September. However, we saw no seed capsules. Jane McGary, Portland, Oregon, USA _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…