Jul 31, 2013

Much more than extremely rare.....



Beautiful? No! Dazzling stunning!
So rare and so beautiful we do not even touched  this plant and we shall never collect it!

This is a Dyckia hebdingii! But...but..see it!
they are seedlings not crown divisions. Hebdingii present its most notable variation.

Variation? Yes, this is the way living creatures, animals, plants, fungi..respond to the climate or other possible variations. If one species is so fine and solid  prepossessed creature without any variation how can it respond and survive to a drastic variation in climate?
Here we were under meters of ice for millions of years. We already were tropical hot, desert...
What you see here is a card withi the sleeve of the hebdingii species!
(Note: the pink flower is an oxalis.)




These are the only ones! 
There is no more, any one more but these.






Look, how old are those plants?
Well the plants to the left are not plants but plant. a single one!
they are all the very same one plant only  separated long ago divided crowns.
They must be more than 100 years old!
Most of the groups we see are in fact just one plant. They are clones!
Seedlings may present some phenotype differences.
Here you see three populations. They are distinct and distinctive ones!!
The right half of the picture presents two populations.
These three populations are Dyckia hebdingii but....seed made groups are  or maybe be a bit different form one another.
Did you know of this?
Did science tell you this?
Botanic makes one believe Dyckias are all the very same in one population.
NO!
No way!
See this!
I always say: we know nothing on Dyckias!!!
We barely just begun to understand them.
If you say I know....you are the biggest fool of all.
We´ve been fooled and led to believe in less than nothing.
Scientists , the describers almost never go to the fields. Most never even have been to Brazil.
Dyckias are fantastic plants! They make you fall from the horse specially if one goes to fast on horseback.
Dyckias are just like a wild horse...one must go easy here.

Nothing like seeing the true, touch it.....
 

All in a Dyckia hebdingii rocky field...



No word is needed here!
These pictures take my breath away, I wonder yours.
Relish them. They are huge, enlarge them.
I am proud of being capable of doing this.
Believe me it was a long , long, long way to achieve this....

(My English skills are not  the best, my German is almost a disaster, my Italian, my Spanish and my French also 
and soon my Chinese will be as  poor as my German.)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbG5oz76Bt8

Brasil, meu Brasil brasileiro!!!!
Terra de samba e de pandeiro .
Brasil.

Ah, esse coqueiro que dá coco...é onde amarro a minha rede
é onde a lua vem brilhar.....

Nossos campos tem mais flores,
Nosso céu tem mais estrelas.....

 

All in a Dyckia hebdingii rocky field......



I am trying to show you what I dared to think it would be worth the travel in order to inform you.
I also tried to be your eyes on the rocky fields.....a hard task no doubt.



Dyckia, mosses, lichens, cacti, grasses, rock and more ....more.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


I think this gives you a good idea of this Dyckia environment....
Seed pods were all ripe and full.
This is the middle of winter here.
 

On Dyckia hebdingii fields



This helps you to demystify the idea Brazil is a torrid hot humid place.
Early that day, three days ago there was a mild frost all over this hebdingii place.
Notice this is not a mountain area. The mountain area, delicatas are mountain dwellers, got heavy frost.
Last week Santa Catarina, my state, was snow covered in almost 90% of its territory.
Notice the grass cold burned by the morning frost.

 
 


Scientists, (botanist) and friends.
Sun shine diminishes the cold sensation.
Djeines is in short sleeves....
It was 11 degrees Centigrade by midday it was 20 Centigrade!

 

All in a Dyckia hebdingii field



Cacti share Dyckia habitat with many other plants and rocks are all over the place. 
I think all and every information your eyes get from here is very important as they might help you to better understand Dyckias.



Notice the huge lichen colony.
Lichen is fungi and algae association.
They feed or contribute to Dyckias health as they die and form substrate to Dyckias.

 


This tree is amid rocks and it belongs to the same family  pine trees  belong to.
This is a podocarpus. It is native and it is  a sort of pine tree.

 


A natural bonsai...
Enjoy the landscape and notice the mature Dyckia seed pods.

 


Bushes and trees.
Notice the retorted branches and the coarse bark. This denotes a xeric environment.

 
 
 
 
 


One picture holds a thousand plus information....

 
 
 


.


Senhor Marcionilo and  Dona Maria Garcia da Rocha live here.
This is their farm. They raise cattle, a very resistant regional kind of cattle.
we saw then  grazing amid Dyckias and they also can feed on Dyckia flower stalks
for they are spineless and tender soft.
The land owners.
See this , take time seeing this.
This is the nearest to a Dyckia lover paradise one can get all over the world.

Notice I am in a Dyckia fields and there are several rock outcrops on the other side. Dyckias are every where.
Can you spot  a friend of mine  (in blue costumes). He appears on both these pictures.
Can you see him?
Search.
I did not use telescopic lens to give you the real idea of the  grandeur of this landscape.
I won´t tell you where Mauro is ....he is pretty conspicuous!
He is in the middle of a Dyckia hebdingii field.

 

On Dyckia hebdingii rocky fields


Look,look this...cacti growing on a fence post!
Who  made this?
The answer to this question  is perched on top of that tree you see  on the  picture below.

Cacti produce fruits full of seeds. Birds feed on them and......

 What a day!
I wished you were there, I did wished you were there.



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Jul 30, 2013



This is an invasive weed, a plague.
Pinus elliotis was extensively used here to make cellulose paste to obtain paper.
What a disaster! It went wild!
Look here it is growing literally on the rock.
It used a termite next to germinate and  notice what else is there but not for too long...
All the other pine trees here seen are invaders. They were not man planted.
Pinus elliottis is a North American  resident and here it is a nonsense.



This is close to Arroio dos Ratos in Rio Grande do sul.
Dyckia hebdingii

 




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