Chile 2015

Habitat, nursery/collection and show tours.
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DaveW
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Re: Chile 2015

Post by DaveW »

There had obviously been quite a lot of water down this valley in Flamenco earlier in the year.
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We only found two plants, this first one hanging on by it's root. How many existed there before the floods is unknown.
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On higher ground further on we found Copiapoa rupstris.
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DaveW
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Re: Chile 2015

Post by DaveW »

A rather larger coastal settlement.
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Another Thelocephala odieri population this time with a few in flower.
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DaveW
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Re: Chile 2015

Post by DaveW »

Copiapoa marginata
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DaveW
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Re: Chile 2015

Post by DaveW »

Also Neoporteria gracilis.
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Also Eulychinia, which explains my confusion earlier since I presumed they would all have woolly flowers like this.
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nobby
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Re: Chile 2015

Post by nobby »

Hallo Dave,

fantastic pictures and a fantastic journey!
Congratulations!
Can you give some further informations about Neoporteria gracilis?
I never found this name before.

Greetings Nobby
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DaveW
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Re: Chile 2015

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Hi Nobby,

As I said earlier I am using the genus Neoporteria sensu Donald and Rowley (1966) for Neoporteria sensu stricto and what Ritter called his Chilean Pyrrhocacti, which equate to Backeberg's Neochilenia and Horridocactus, rather than using Eriosyce sensu Kattermann for them because my and others present thinking is Eriosyce sensu stricto is not closely related to the rest.

Pyrrhocactus gracilis was published by Ritter as FR 495 in the Dutch Journal Succulenta No. 12, December 1961, pp.129-131. The habitat was given as "Morro Copiapo, by Caldera, Province Atacama, North Chile". Ritter says "similar to P. calderanus but smaller, spines shorter, flower smaller, white"

Fred Kattermann reduces it to synonymy under his 22.1b Eriosyce taltalensis v. pygmaea (p. 160 in his Eriosyce book)
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nobby
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Re: Chile 2015

Post by nobby »

Hallo Dave,

thank you for the explanation.
It is confusing to have so many names (sometimes without description) for one plant.

Best regards
Nobby
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DaveW
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Re: Chile 2015

Post by DaveW »

It depends how much of a "lumper" or "splitter" you are Nobby. Ritter was probably more of a splitter since he seemed to erect a new species every few kilometres, but he was a very thorough collector, as was Lau, spending more time in the field in remote localities than all of the professional botanists later trying to classify this group. Of course Ritter was collecting for a commercial cactus firm (his sister Frau Winter) and new names sold plants and seed. We also tend to forget his earlier collections in Mexico, since as far as I can find out he did not give them FR numbers at the time, but of course he is commemorated in the name Aztekium ritteri, which presumably he originally collected.

You can see a biography of Ritter here:-

http://plants.jstor.org/stable/10.5555/ ... m000007034

As said earlier, his concept of taltalensis/transiens (his former rupicolus) was pinkish flowered plants, giving the similar looking but whitish flowered ones a separate name. Fred Kattermann later lumped in many of the similar whitish flowered ones with Hutchison's pinkish flowered taltalensis.

Of course these were the days of morphological classifications (as largely is The New Cactus Lexicon) so time will tell if DNA Sequencing eventually agrees with Ritter or Kattermann. Roger tells me these days one of the problems is deciding what degree of variation Ritter intended for his species since with some of species the type localities have now been taken over for viticulture and agriculture, meaning you cannot find the plants there anymore to compare with others from surrounding areas.

However this is not a new phenomenon, since many of the old original species of other genera we grow no longer exist where they were originally collected since the small hamlets they were conveniently collected near in the days of sailing ships are now sprawling modern towns that completely wiped out their type localities.
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nobby
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Re: Chile 2015

Post by nobby »

Hallo Dave,
you are right, the number of names depends on "lumpers" and "splitters" and on the differences between Ritter and Backeberg. The other problem is that Ritter gave a (field-) number to a taxon not to a location. Although some remarks (12 km north on ruta 5) e.g. are not helpful. The roads changed their course and you may now reach another hill with another plant after 12 km. Some regions are private property meanwhile and it is difficult to find the owner to get the permission to look for the plants.
On the other side we can move much quicker than Ritter ever was able to and we can reach locations he had never been able to see.
Best regards
nobby
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Re: Chile 2015

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We climbed a steep hill which claimed to be 1100m to the summit.
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And to our surprise found a Thelocephala on top. Rogers first remark was "that should not be here" and we were not sure if it was the same as those at the lower altitude. It was certainly the highest altitude we found a Thelocephala at.
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The granite rocks here has been eroded by windblown grit so it must have taken many decades to erode such hard rock.
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Quite a rough climb.
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And after that found only one plant worth photographing.
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Nottingham Branch BCSS. Joined the then NCSS in 1961, Membership number 11944. Cactus only collection.
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