Plant geography of Chile

Abstract

The chorological approach attempts to classify taxa according to their geographic relationships. The Chilean native genera have been classified in 7 floristic elements and 10 generalized tracks. The origin of major disjunctions in the flora is intensively discussed from the viewpoint of under contrasting biogeographic paradigms like dispersal and vicariance. Attention is also put on the influence of the Andean Dry Diagonal on the evolution of the Chilean flora and its distribution patterns.