written and photographed by Larry Bleiberg
Jul 2003, Vol. 7 No. 10
Danger is a fitting word for what I found on a foggy Sunday morning in southern Chile when I first stepped into the woods. It was a hike like none I have ever taken. Monkey puzzle trees towered above thin, straight branches forming a grid in the sky. At ground level, snakelike limbs from younger trees bobbed in front of me. A fog rolled across the landscape. Such drama was unexpected from a comic plant, a threatened species that looks like a Dr. Seuss creation.