FLORA IN CHUBUT

It is distributed in three great areas:

Mountain region
The mountains, which cover the northeastern sector of the Province and the Valdés Peninsula coincides with the arid weather of the steppes. Scarce precipitations turn this region into a type of desert where only shrubs and grasses resistant to droughts can survive.

The western mountain on the Valdés Peninsula presents some characteristic shrubs such as the brea, chañar, atamisque, jarilla, prosopis, and scarce grasses. Cacti and hard and scarce pastures that do not cover the entire surface, leave grass spots on the bare ground, usually accompanying them.

Close to the seashore, where there is more humidity, the terrain is sheathed in copious vegetation that forms a continuous mantle. Here, bigger shrub-type of trees grow, such as the peppertree, the Patagonian locust tree, the lagoon bush, the calafate and the verbena, with presents beautiful purple flowers.

We find salty soils on the terrains close to the sea where only species tolerating high salinity can live, such as the jume, the zampa and the vidriera. The reed and the salty grass are common in these habitats.

Patagonian steppe region
The Patagonian steppe, which develops in the Patagonian zone of Chubut on the foot of the Andes, is the largest domain in Chubut and it borders the coastal zone.

The lack of water, the low temperatures, the dryness of the air, the violence of the winds, and the deficiency of its sandy and stony soils regarding organic material, determine an aggressive environment where no trees grow, and the few cultivated ones usually have their treetops bent by the action of the wind, which is why they are called the flag trees.

A scattered, dwarfed and leafless shrubby steppe will hardly survive here. Scarce vegetation, spread, low and compact leaving parts of the ground bare. The calafate, the cat's claw, the zampa, the neneo and the coirón spatter the soil this steppe.

Sometimes, humid vegetation grows on creeks and on the bottom of the valleys and remain flooded. They are locally called mallines or vegas, and appear to be true oasis in the desert.

Sub-Antarctic forests
The sub-Antarctic woods grow on a narrow coastal fringe that extends from north to south along the Andean cordillera, west of the Province of Chubut. They are very humid and thick forests that could be considered true jungles because of their leafiness, if they were not growing in a cold weather like that of this region. The main trees are the southern beech, the lenga beech and the coihue, together with the radales, cypresses of the cordillera, alerces, palo santos or white sages, also known as incense trees, white voquis, maquíes, hazelnut trees, calafates, maitenes, brooms and arrayanes. The coligüe cane, very solid and with hard leafs, also thrives hardly amongst these tree species.