LLANOS DE CHALLE NATIONAL PARK, Chile: A rare bloom in Chile’s Atacama Desert has briefly transformed one of the world’s driest places into a dazzling carpet of fuchsia-colored wildflowers.
The arid region — considered the driest nonpolar desert on Earth, averaging around 2 millimeters (0.08 inches) of rainfall a year — was a riot of color this week after unusual downpours throughout the Southern Hemisphere’s winter months soaked the desert foothills and highlands.
Experts describe 2025 as among the Atacama’s wettest in recent years, with some high-elevation borderlands receiving up to 60 millimeters of rain (2.3 inches) in July and August.
Seeds from more than 200 flower species sit in the red and rocky soil of the Atacama Desert all year, awaiting the winter rains, said Víctor Ardiles, chief curator of botany at Chile’s National Museum of Natural History.
Moisture from the Amazon basin arrives to the desert’s eastern fringes as modest rainfall, and from the Pacific Ocean to its coastline as dense fog. Dormant seeds must store up at least 15 millimeters (0.6 inches) of water to germinate.
“When certain moisture thresholds are met, (the seeds) activate, grow and then bloom,” Ardiles said.
Yet even then there’s no guarantee that brightly colored bulbs will explode through the soil.
“There are four key factors that determine whether this process reaches the seed – water, temperature, daylight and humidity,” Ardiles added.
“Not all the seeds will germinate, some will remain waiting … a portion will make it to the next generation, while others will be left behind along life’s path.”
The main threads in the floral carpet are pink and purple. But yellow, red, blue and white strands emerge as well.
Tourists flocked to the northern desert in recent days to marvel at the short-lived flower show. Some even trek from Chile’s capital, Santiago, 800 kilometers (497 miles) south of the Copiapó region.
Most flowers will have vanished by November, as summer sets in. But more drought-resistant species can stick around until January.
“It’s one of those rare things you have to take advantage of,” said Maritza Barrera, 44, who hit the road with her two kids for almost six hours to catch the desert bloom in the Llanos de Challe National Park last week. “It’s more stunning than I could have imagined.”
Recognizing the ephemeral desert flowers as a conservation priority, Chilean President Gabriel Boric minted a new national park further inland in 2023, converting about 220 square miles (570 square kilometers) of flower fields along the Pan-American Highway into Desert Bloom National Park.
“Nowhere on Earth does this phenomenon occur like it does here in Chile,” Ardiles said.
The world’s driest desert blooms into a rare, fleeting flower show
https://arab.news/bzu9y
The world’s driest desert blooms into a rare, fleeting flower show
- 2025 was one of Atacama’s wettest in recent years, with some high-elevation borderlands receiving up to 60 mm of rain in July and August
- Seeds from more than 200 flower species sit in the red and rocky soil of the Atacama all year, awaiting the winter rains, says Chilean botanist
‘Right to enjoy culture’: Prisoner sues Australian state for ban on Vegemite
- Andre McKechnie, serving a life sentence for murder, takes his battle for the salty, sticky, brown byproduct of brewing beer to the Supreme Court of Victoria
MELBOURNE, Australia: A prisoner is challenging an Australian state’s ban on prisoners eating Vegemite, claiming in a court suit that withholding the polarizing yeast-based spread that most of the nation revers as an unfairly maligned culinary icon breaches his human right to “enjoy his culture as an Australian.”
Andre McKechnie, 54, serving a life sentence for murder, took his battle for the salty, sticky, brown byproduct of brewing beer to the Supreme Court of Victoria, according to documents the court registry released to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
While more than 80 percent of Australian households are estimated to have a jar of Vegemite in their pantries, inmates in all 12 prisons in Victoria are going without as the national favorite for smearing thinly across breakfast toast is considered contraband.
McKecknie is suing Victoria’s Department of Justice and Community Safety and the agency that manages the prisons, Corrections Victoria. The case is scheduled for trial next year.
Prisoner argues Vegemite ban breaches Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities
McKechnie is seeking a court declaration that the defendants denied him his right under the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act to “enjoy his culture as an Australian.”
The Act guarantees “All persons with a particular cultural, religious, racial or linguistic background” the right to “enjoy their culture, to declare and practice their religion and to use their language.”
He also wants a declaration that the defendants breached the Corrections Act by “failing to provide food adequate to maintain” McKechnie’s “well-being.”
He wants the court to order the decision to ban Vegemite to be “remade in accordance with the law.”
Vegemite has been banned from Victorian prisons since 2006, with Corrections Victoria saying it “interferes with narcotic detection dogs.”
Inmates used to smear packages of illicit drugs with Vegemite in the hope that the odor would distract the dogs from the contraband.
Vegemite also contains yeast, which is banned from Victorian prisons because of its “potential to be used in the production of alcohol,” the contraband list says.
The Australian favorite since 1923 considered an acquired taste
Manufactured in Australia since 1923 as an alternative to Britain’s Marmite, Vegemite was long marketed as a source of vitamin B for growing children.
The spread is beloved by a majority of Australians, but typically considered an acquired taste at best by those who weren’t raised on it.
The last US president to visit Australia, Barack Obama, once said: “It’s horrible.”
Australian band Men at Work aroused international curiosity about the yeast-based spread when they mentioned a “Vegemite sandwich” in their 1980s hit “Down Under.”
The band’s lead singer Colin Hay once accused American critics of laying Vegemite on too thick, blaming a “more is more” US culture.
It’s a favorite on breakfast toast and in cheese sandwiches, with most fans agreeing it’s best applied sparingly. Australian travelers bemoan Vegemite’s scarcity overseas.
The Australian government intervened in April when Canadian officials temporarily prevented a Toronto-based cafe from selling Vegemite in jars and on toast in a dispute media branded as “Vegemite-gate.” Canadians relented and allowed the product to be sold despite its failure to comply with local regulations dealing with food packaging and vitamin fortification.
The Department of Justice and Community Safety and Corrections Victoria declined to comment on Tuesday. Government agencies generally maintain it is not appropriate to comment on issues that are before the courts.
Queensland prisons also ban Vegemite, but Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, does not. Other Australian jurisdictions have yet to tell AP on Tuesday where they stand on the spread.
Victims of crime brand Vegemite lawsuit frivolous and offensive
Victims of crime advocate and lawyer John Herron said it was a frivolous lawsuit and was offensive to victims’ families.
“As victims, we don’t have any rights. We have limited if any support. It’s always about the perpetrator, and this just reinforces that,” said Herron, whose daughter Courtney Herron, was beaten to death in a Melbourne park in 2019. Her killer was found not guilty of murder by reason of mental impairment.
“It’s not a case of Vegemite or Nutella or whatever it may be. It’s an extra perk that is rubbing our faces in the tragedy that we’ve suffered,” Herron added.
McKechnie is currently held at maximum-security Port Phillip Prison. He was 23 years old when he stabbed to death wealthy Gold Coast property developer Otto Kuhne in Queensland state in 1994.
He was sentenced to life for murder and transferred a decade later from the Queensland to the Victorian prison system.
He wrote last year that he spent eight years out on parole in Victoria before he decided that the system “had done more damage than good” and opted to return to prison.
McKechnie’s lawyers didn’t respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
