“The town of Valparaiso is… a long straggling place ; wherever a little valley comes down to the beach the houses are piled up…otherwise it consists of one street…parallel to the coast.”
July 23rd – 31st 1834
“The vegetation here has a peculiar aspect; this is owing to the number & variety of bushes which seem to supply the place of plants; many of them bear very pretty flowers & very commonly the whole shrub has a strong resinous or aromatic smell…ones hands & even clothes become strongly scented.”
August 5th 1834
Charles Darwin The Journal of a Voyage in H.M.S. Beagle
Further reading: Porter, D. 1999. Charles Darwin’s Chilean plant collections. Revista Chilena de Historia Natural 72: 181-200
