Argylia Radiata (Cartucho) - Yellow - the most common cartucho

Argylia Radiata (Cartucho) - The rarer brown variant

Loasa tricolor ("Hortiga"- Chilean Stinging Nettles) - This is a vicious plant with a nasty poison. Anyone who hikes in Chile should know what it is and no one with any brains walks through a field of this stuff twice with shorts on! The pain is quite disagreeable and lasts for about half an hour. But still, it has a lovely flower, little appreciated by Chileans (for good reason!). If you look closely, you can see the little sacs of poison glinting on the leaves.

Cordia decandra ("Carbonillo") In the mountains near Cerro Tololo, one of the main large plants is this bush, which most of the time is dried out and looks like a dead bush a couple of meters high, with few if any leaves on it. It is so dry and lifeless during this period that the campesinos call it a "charcoal bush" and burn it as firewood. Yet, when the rains come, these apparently lifeless plants become completely covered with flowers and people ask where the bushes were a month ago!

Fuchsia lycioides ("Palo de Yegua") The fuchsias are a genus which is primarily endemic to Central and South America. Most of the domesticated fuchsias are said to come from Chilean origins. This plant looks like a dead stick most of the time. When it suddenly comes to life it becomes covered with leaves and tiny fuchsias 1-2 cm long.

Tropaeolum tricolor ("Chupa-Chupa"-Suck suck) A little vine with small red flowers, which in spite of its name, does not seem to be a parasite nor dense enough to harm the plant on which it climbs.

Aristolochia chilensis ("Oreja de Zorro") Not especially pretty, actually rather funny looking, but interesting nevertheless.

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