From today June 8 until June 28 I will be guiding a field trip for a group from the CSSA, and I try to report on the progress of the trip and post some picures here. The itinerary will cover most of the cacti species that grow in the states of Bahia and Minas Gerais, Brazil. We started today visiting a habitat near Salvador, the capital city of Bahia. The habitat consists of white sand dunes where four cactus species grow: Pilosocereus catingicola subsp. salvadorensis, Pilosocereus pentaedrophorus, Cereus fernambucensis and Melocactus violaceus subsp. margaritaceus. The weather was not so good, and we had a couple of light showers while we were at the habitat, but the rain was not too bad.
Here is a picture of this habitat:
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Cheers,
Marlon Machado.
Institute for Systematic Botany, University of Zurich, Zollikerstrasse 107, CH-8008 Zurich, Switzerland.
Below are some pictures of Melocactus violaceus subsp. margaritaceus. This is a quite nice Melocactus, the smallest species found in Brazil - plants are only about 10 to 15 cm in diameter, and develop their cephalium after only four or five years.
This is a juvenile plant:
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Cheers,
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Marlon Machado.
Institute for Systematic Botany, University of Zurich, Zollikerstrasse 107, CH-8008 Zurich, Switzerland.