Jul 22, 2009

Dyckia estevesii and The Paradisea apoda ...


Dictionaire D´Histoire Naturell
Charles Orbigny -1849


Paradisea apoda

No, no I am not mad nor out of my mind, not up to now.
Paradisea apoda is the name of some of the most strikingly colored living creatures
human eyes had a chance to see.
These are birds all from the last lands to be known by the European guys. Every other land was known, including America. People would sail from London to Australia to never come back. The trip was a journey to heroes.
England exuded their troublesome citizen to the end of the world. Australia was a new Continent and the terror for the English outlaws. Australia was the biggest prison of The British Empire.
What a Paradise!
Soon all sort of gadgets begin to appear in London and spread to all Europe.
Death animals, pieces of them, plants... and later on but still long, long ago some bird skins also found their way to the heads of the most elegant European Ladies.
It was sheer elegant to have a stuffed colored bird skin on a lady´s hat.
Taxonomists do not thought twice and took those skins from the ladies´ hat to describe new birds species. Those skin were all footless (apoda= without feet)
Also those skins were sent to Europe by people who also said the birds had no feet. The skins had no feet. Aborigines, people who prepared the skins removed the feet.
Well, Science concluded: These birds must be refugees from Heavens and the birds were named:
Paradisea apoda, literally: from paradise without feet.
Ornithologist affirmed: These birds are continuously flying and the female lays her eggs on the male back. Taxonomists did not dare to go to New Guinea and risk to be eaten by the people there. Australia was a land of terror and full of the non wanted English people. So it was absolutely plausible not to go down there and even more reasonable to conclude the birds were escapers from Paradise. Taxonomists did not know if the Newest Continent was Paradise or Hell.
Paradisean birds this is their common names up to now.
The most funny scientific Latim name of all!
There are several species of Paradisea apoda.
The scientific names began with Paradisea apoda and every one are among the most wonderful living creatures of all. Tropical birds are really Paradise refugees...all of them...parrots, toucans, peacocks, macaws, hummingbirds and so on and on...what a drab graceless world this one would be without them!
But that was long, long ago when we just sailed the oceans. People took months to go from London in England to Sydney in Australia. Those who went never got back they stayed in the Newest World as The Australian Continent was known. Then the steam boat came and we did not rely anymore on the winds to make our trips around the world.
Them, them, them...the jet plane made our travelling just a matter of money to pay for the tickets and a bit of luck ´cause once in a while they just fall from the skies above....

This fan Dyckia species here seem to be a kind Paradisea apoda vegetable updated version...in a modern jet plane mode. Araguaian Region of Central Brazil was as strange and terrifying as the Australian outback centuries ago, no doubt... No need to risk the neck afterall Europe was used to get strange things from the Tropics everywhere, nothing more natural than a fan like brand new Dyckia species... after all in Australia and New Guinea birds came from Heavens...in Central Brazil Dyckia species may come fanned...

We are all human...
We are all wonderful creatures.
We are all learning we are all kids when we learn.
We all count.
Light is a conquest which flag we all and each one of us lift
to see it trembling
by the wisdom wind...
This is the Light that will make us to get rid of all cancers an other human rapers.
Science must be the Lighthouse.




The above plant is the non described spiral Dyckia that shares
the very same habitat as the described sterile fan Dyckia.
How a sterile plant can be a species?
How it manage to survive enduring ages in habitat without
producing fertile viable seeds?
This miracle is not up to the mortal ones to explain.



The fan like form is something to say wow. Described as species it is a deformed plant. People all around the globe wasted their time trying to get seeds from these plants in order to have new variation as a red or a silver fan Dyckia. Fan Dyckia seem to be a sterile deformation of a non described plant. Even so a formidable and gorgeous plant. The red or the silver fan Dyckia may come from the spiral non described plant seeds for these are fertile ones.



Those babies, most probably, will turn into plants which flowers generate
fan like seedlings besides the normal spiral ones.



The plant with all its babies removed.

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