Dyckia Star Gazer by Bill Baker

 

See the geminated flower stalks.
Gemination can happen at the base of the double flower stalks or up close the flowers buds.
Bifid flower stalks are not that common place in Dyckia.

This hybrid shows floral bractea and basal flower stalks ones  similar to those of the fosteriana.
Foster was a peculiar mind. He took all plants from a habitat, all,  each and every one!
He simply did this to Dyckia fosteriana. He was also a vendor a plant seller, a trader.
So we have Dyckia fosteriana in US since long ago, in fact since ever as foster took all the plants he found.
Today he would  be seen as a devastator.
We never saw any fosteriana plant left in the habitat described by him for fosteriana.
A very poor site in human regards a money seeker.
Foster and most of them old botanic minded guys  took Brazil as an exotic poor place where everything was there for the taker and for free, for the first to find. Funny enough the plant got his name. Why? Because botanists loved new findings no matter  how  they were found nor where. So the "scientific" name... Pure fawning sycophantic act, a way to guarantee more, more, more novelties from a strange, exotic, ownerless world . Science does seem to be blind and has no heart. Name, name, name this is what it counts, a ticket...all for a ticket with a name in it.
The fosteriana type did not resisted to Foster´s assaults to nature.
I t does not exist in nature after his assault.
all we have are populations close to the described habitat...what means regional varieties!
Sengés and others....
Botanics in most cases were not that intrepid innocent minds we´ve come to know.
This happened here first with our orchids. Millions of Laelia tried to go to England and got ruined during the long trip to Europe on board of precarious ship.Many were ruined there due to the poor  understanding of their needs. People were here not interested on the plant behavior but money and fame.
Latin America was taken as a nobody´s land!

We must know what we love, who we love. Knowlegde does not come easy.