The driest desert on Earth just exploded into flower — 200 species deep

Beneath the Atacama Desert — one of the driest places on the planet, where some spots average 15 millimeters of rain a year — millions of seeds and bulbs have been waiting. Not for a season, but for decades. This year's super El Niño dumped 160 to 190 millimeters on the region, and the desert answered: violet carpets, white buds, red and yellow ñañucas, orange terciopelos, and the native garra de león — more than 200 plant species blooming across roughly 6,560 square miles, an area about the size of Chile's Santiago metropolitan region. Chile's forestry service CONAF calls it the most intense desierto florido since 1997; on hills that have shown no green for 30 or 40 years, flowers are blooming. The peak is expected this month.