Florda State Flower

The Atacama Desert in Chile is the driest place in the world. The average annual rainfall there is nil. But perhaps once in five years, sometimes longer, it does rain - and then something like a miracle occurs.

'It was like stepping into Paradise,' wrote one British visitor, Gill Ross, who saw what the rains of 1988 brought to the Atacama. She went on to describe 'beautiful fragile flowers of brilliant colors growing in giant sweeps as though God had scattered handfuls of seed into the wind'.

The following year, another of the world's least fertile places burst into bloom: dried-out Lake Eyre in central Australia, where summer temperatures can reach 54 degree Celsius (130 degree Fahrenheit). Torrential rains in April and May filled the lake, and the drab surrounding desert burst into colors as plants sprang seemingly from nowhere and blossomed.

The flowers grow from the millions of seeds left lying in the sand since the time of the desert's last blooming. How do they cope with the extraordinarily harsh conditions that greet them? The answer lies in the speed with which the plants go through their life cycle, and the nature of their seeds. Whereas plants in more temperate climates may take months to mature, flower and produce seeds, these desert 'ephemerals' may take only two weeks. The seeds themselves will not germinate unless they are saturated with water, which will happen only after especially heavy rains. Otherwise, they lie dormant inside tough shells that will protect them from drought for as long as 25 years. When the rains do come, they bring color to the desert for just a few brief weeks.

The seeds of some plants in these uniquely arid regions react to different amounts of water, so ensuring that they do not all germinate at once: some are always kept in reserve for the future. And almost all of these seemingly magical plants have huge, brilliant flowers to attract as many pollinating insects as possible. Short-lived as they are, they thus have good chances of being fertilized and giving rise to another generation.

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