Everlasting flowers
The sempre-vivas.
Rosangela C. Magalhães — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Antonio Carlos de Albuquerque — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Neto Macedo — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Reuber Brandão — CC BY 4.0
Sempre-Vivas National Park is named after the «everlastings», rocky-grassland flowers that keep their shape and colour after picking and drying and that local people long gathered to sell. It was created on 13 December 2002 over about 124,000 hectares of the southern Espinhaço range, in Diamantina, Buenópolis, Bocaiúva and Olhos-d'Água in northern Minas Gerais. The park rises between 650 and 1,525 metres and forms the watershed between the Jequitinhonha and São Francisco rivers, feeding them from some 600 springs. It holds cerrado fields and woodland, seasonal forest, streams and lagoons, with frogs and birds found nowhere else, among them the hyacinth visorbearer hummingbird. Entry is free and the park opens daily 8:00-18:00, but tours need local guides for the safety of visitors and the environment, since roads are dirt and services few. The nearest base is the historic town of Diamantina, and long-distance hiking routes along the Espinhaço also cross it.
The sempre-vivas.
Between two great rivers.
Hyacinth visorbearer.
Diamantina, Buenópolis, Bocaiúva and Olhos-d'Água, Minas Gerais
From Diamantina, with local guides; entry is free, daily 8:00-18:00.