Chile’s Atacama Desert is experiencing its largest and most colourful wildflower display in 30 years, with more than 200 species in bloom after unusually heavy winter rains, NPR reports.

The flowering, known locally as Desierto Florido, has covered stretches of the northern Chilean desert in pink, yellow, lilac and purple. Whether it is the largest flowering event ever recorded there remains an open question, according to John Bartlett’s reporting for NPR.

The rains brought destruction before the flowers emerged. Floodwaters in July and August damaged or destroyed dozens of homes and forced hundreds of people to evacuate. But water also reached deeper into the ground than it had in decades, allowing dormant seeds, bulbs and tubers to sprout.

Scientists studying the bloom have found flowers in places where none had previously been recorded, suggesting some bulbs may have remained dormant since before detailed study of the phenomenon began in 1997.

“This is a natural seed bank, a dormant archive that becomes a living one with the rains,” Moisés Grimberg, administrator of Llanos de Challe National Park, told NPR. The plants have roughly two to three months to complete their life cycles, he said.

The display has brought a surge of visitors. Grimberg said the coastal park, which normally receives about 10,000 visitors annually, welcomed 15,000 in just the past few weeks. Chile’s national tourism board expects around 300,000 overnight trips in the region during the two-month bloom.

Meanwhile, biologists from INIA, Chile’s national seed bank, are collecting specimens to preserve the plants’ genetic material and adaptations to extreme dryness.

Atacama regional governor Miguel Vargas is beginning a bid for UNESCO World Heritage recognition for the flowering phenomenon. Recognition has not been granted.

This year’s bloom is projected to last until mid-November.

Sources