English
Nature always offers spectacular surprises. Desert flowers are a true natural spectacle. The sand dunes of Chile's Atacama Desert, the driest on the planet, have been covered in white and purple flowers in recent days, after early rains spurred blooms in the southern hemisphere's dead of winter. Atacama has been nicknamed the "flowering desert", the seeds and bulbs enduring the harsh weather to give birth to flowers once every few years, during the spring. But recent heavy rains attributed to the weather phenomenon known as El Nino have led to an early bloom. According to Cesar Pizarro, who leads biodiversity conservation efforts for the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF), an organization under the Chilean Government, there aren't enough flowers so far this winter for the event to be officially considered an appearance of the "flowering desert ". However, more rain is expected in the coming weeks, which could cause the bloom to spread over a larger area, Pizarro said. "In the meantime, we have to wait," he added. Early blooming in the Atacama desert was most recent in 2015.
Nature: Desert bloomed
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