Chile 2015
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 11:55 am
Chile 2015
I was waiting until Roger Ferryman’s account of the BCSS Conservation Project was published in the June Journal (Vol. 34, No. 2, pp 79-82) before adding a few more pictures of our trip so as not to unnecessarily duplicate them. I am afraid it will get added to as I get time to process the pictures.
The trip originally arose as “The Colin’s Trip”, since I gather Roger had promised Colin’s Parker, Cutler and Norton he would show them the Copiapoa’s in Chile sometime. He later asked if I would like to join so he could show me his Eriosyce habitats since Roger and I had corresponded about these plants long before he ever set foot in Chile. I dragged my feet for a while but eventually decided to go, therefore I guess I got made an “Honorary Colin“!
There were seven of us in the group. Pam and Roger Ferryman, Colin and Jean Cutler, Colin Parker, Colin Norton and myself. As most of us were over 60 and some of us 70 years plus, Paul Klaassen, who was doing a similar trip a week or two later with Pablo Weisser, dubbed us “The Zimmer Frame Trip”. Unfortunately, though both groups were there together we never met because our itineraries were always getting changed due to the earlier floods.
For those that do not know, 2015 was a year of exceptional rains in Chile with a lot of property being destroyed and old roads washed out necessitating changing where we went and where we stayed on a day to day basis.
You can get some idea of the floods from these video’s on YouTube:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zebLaU2UvhA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s73N09syaTU
Some of the damage was caused by rivers overflowing with the flood water, but one hotel we stayed at said they were under 2 foot of water at one time through water simply running off the hills because the normally dry ground acts just like tarmac in that water does not initially sink in, but runs straight off.
Add to this, just before we went the areas we were going to suffered a fair sized earthquake and a tsunami in some of the coastal regions! It was amazing therefore how well the Chileans had managed to clear up the damage by the time we got there.
You can find details of Paul’s trip following us in his Cactus Trip Diaries here. Unfortunately the site lists the last entry first so you have to scroll right down to the bottom to start:-
https://pkcactus.info/category/chile/chile-2015/page/6/
The day we arrived, 15th October 2015, Roger took us to Ingrid and Richard Keim’s nursery at Olmue (pronounced Olm-way I found out!).
http://www.cactusalvaralto.com/
http://www.cactusalvaralto.com/fotogaleria/
This was not that far from where Ritter settled for a time at Granzio in a property bought from Pablo Weisser‘s family. An account of which you can find in Paul Klaassen’s Diaries.
I only took a few shots whilst there since some of those were duplicated in the Keim's link above.
Copiapoa's at the Keim's
The next day we set off for Pichidangui, the type locality for Ritter’s Pyrrhocactus chilensis v. albidiflora (now usually just lumped into Eriosyce chilensis). E. chilensis has variable flower colours, pink at one end of it’s range and yellowish white at the other, but in the centre all can occur together. As shown in Roger Ferryman's picture here:-
In fact Hildmann’s original publication of Echinocactuis chilensis in Schumann’s Gasamtbeschreibung der Kakteen of 1898 says “floribus flavis”, so why the pink flowered form has been mistakenly considered the type form I do not know? If you need to distinguish the flower colours, Ritter’s variety albidiflorus would seem to be E. chilensis type and it would be the pink flowered form that would need a varietal name. As said before since both flower colours can occur together in places they are all best just regarded as E. chilensis.
To be continued.
Correction from Mr Klaassen
"Roger called his party the ‘Zimmerframers’"
I was waiting until Roger Ferryman’s account of the BCSS Conservation Project was published in the June Journal (Vol. 34, No. 2, pp 79-82) before adding a few more pictures of our trip so as not to unnecessarily duplicate them. I am afraid it will get added to as I get time to process the pictures.
The trip originally arose as “The Colin’s Trip”, since I gather Roger had promised Colin’s Parker, Cutler and Norton he would show them the Copiapoa’s in Chile sometime. He later asked if I would like to join so he could show me his Eriosyce habitats since Roger and I had corresponded about these plants long before he ever set foot in Chile. I dragged my feet for a while but eventually decided to go, therefore I guess I got made an “Honorary Colin“!
There were seven of us in the group. Pam and Roger Ferryman, Colin and Jean Cutler, Colin Parker, Colin Norton and myself. As most of us were over 60 and some of us 70 years plus, Paul Klaassen, who was doing a similar trip a week or two later with Pablo Weisser, dubbed us “The Zimmer Frame Trip”. Unfortunately, though both groups were there together we never met because our itineraries were always getting changed due to the earlier floods.
For those that do not know, 2015 was a year of exceptional rains in Chile with a lot of property being destroyed and old roads washed out necessitating changing where we went and where we stayed on a day to day basis.
You can get some idea of the floods from these video’s on YouTube:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zebLaU2UvhA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s73N09syaTU
Some of the damage was caused by rivers overflowing with the flood water, but one hotel we stayed at said they were under 2 foot of water at one time through water simply running off the hills because the normally dry ground acts just like tarmac in that water does not initially sink in, but runs straight off.
Add to this, just before we went the areas we were going to suffered a fair sized earthquake and a tsunami in some of the coastal regions! It was amazing therefore how well the Chileans had managed to clear up the damage by the time we got there.
You can find details of Paul’s trip following us in his Cactus Trip Diaries here. Unfortunately the site lists the last entry first so you have to scroll right down to the bottom to start:-
https://pkcactus.info/category/chile/chile-2015/page/6/
The day we arrived, 15th October 2015, Roger took us to Ingrid and Richard Keim’s nursery at Olmue (pronounced Olm-way I found out!).
http://www.cactusalvaralto.com/
http://www.cactusalvaralto.com/fotogaleria/
This was not that far from where Ritter settled for a time at Granzio in a property bought from Pablo Weisser‘s family. An account of which you can find in Paul Klaassen’s Diaries.
I only took a few shots whilst there since some of those were duplicated in the Keim's link above.
Copiapoa's at the Keim's
The next day we set off for Pichidangui, the type locality for Ritter’s Pyrrhocactus chilensis v. albidiflora (now usually just lumped into Eriosyce chilensis). E. chilensis has variable flower colours, pink at one end of it’s range and yellowish white at the other, but in the centre all can occur together. As shown in Roger Ferryman's picture here:-
In fact Hildmann’s original publication of Echinocactuis chilensis in Schumann’s Gasamtbeschreibung der Kakteen of 1898 says “floribus flavis”, so why the pink flowered form has been mistakenly considered the type form I do not know? If you need to distinguish the flower colours, Ritter’s variety albidiflorus would seem to be E. chilensis type and it would be the pink flowered form that would need a varietal name. As said before since both flower colours can occur together in places they are all best just regarded as E. chilensis.
To be continued.
Correction from Mr Klaassen
"Roger called his party the ‘Zimmerframers’"