“…the steep sides of the hills dip directly into the sea…the whole appearance is in consequence much more that of T. del Fuego than of Chiloe…the wood is so intricate that a person who has never seen it will not be able to imagine such a confused mass of dead and dying trunks… we crept on our hands & knees under the rotten trunks. In the lower parts…noble trees of Winters bark, and the Laurus sassafras (?) with fragrant leaves…were matted together by bamboos and canes. On the higher parts brushwood... with here & there a red Cypress or an Alerce. I was also much interested in finding our old friend the T. del F. Beech, Fagus antarcticus; they were poor stunted little trees…”
Charles Darwin The Journal of a Voyage in H.M.S. Beagle
December 8th 1834
Further reading: Porter, D. 1999. Charles Darwin’s Chilean plant collections. Revista Chilena de Historia Natural 72: 181-200
