Argentina and Chile November 2008 Day 3, Chilecito - Fiambala 300km

[Mike P]

[attachment 16322 www1.jpg]
General shot with moody mountains in the background.As you can see the light was very flat.

[iann]

I notice the other travellers are studiously ignoring the Tephrocactus weeds?

[Mike P]

Tephrocactus alexanderii. What more could you ask for. Beautiful spines, beautiful flower.
[attachment 16323 xxxx1.jpg]

[Mike P]

And a close up.
[attachment 16324 w1.jpg]

[Mike P]

Lest you think that I ignored the other plants (and there were several) here is a silhouette of Echinopis leucantha (I think) with more moody mountains as a backdrop.
[attachment 16327 y1.jpg]

[David_L]

Most of the Echinopsis leucantha plants we saw had white flowers but here there was a rather nice plant with pinkish flowers.


[attachment 16328 Echinopsis_leucantha3.jpg]

[David_L]

There were also a couple of very nice Gymnocalyciums. Mostly these were well tucked in under the shrubs for protection as this really was a very dry and inhospitable spot.


[attachment 16329 Gymnocalycium_glaucum.jpg]

Gymnocalycium glaucum. These were decent sized plants. Some of the larger ones were 6" across.

[David_L]

A closer view of a particularly nice plant.


[attachment 16330 Gymnocalycium_glaucum2.jpg]

[David_L]

There was a fair degree of variability in this species. This example has rather different spines.


[attachment 16332 Gymnocalycium_glaucum3.jpg]

[David_L]

There was a second species of Gymnocalycium here also.


[attachment 16333 Gymno_catamar_schmidianum.jpg]


Gymnocalycium catamarcense v. schmidianum