Mar 20, 2014


UNDERSTANDING DYCKIAS




Brazil holds lots of fantastic looking plants and many just seen by a very few eyes, others yet to be seen by the very first time.
In the Amazon we find never seen before human beings! This alone makes us think about the vastness of the Brazilian territory.
We have no deserts, no ice fields, no ultra high mountains, simply every square kilometer here is perfectly habitable any time of the year.
Presently we are finding new mammals and never once met tribe men,let aside plants and this is 2014 not 1814!
Bromeliads just recently took our eyes and Dyckias and allies are a most recent curiosity.
Science relied on collectors and bush men and our Dyckias were the last to call any attention.
Orchids and cacti were the prime "beef" to science and most of the scientists never left Europe or US offices and their homes.
Some Brazilian plants were described as being Mexican so big and confused were the collectors luggage. Most scientists were much more interested in their mentors and their own celebrity than any plant.
Dyckia dawsoni and fosteriana (type) were simply extinguished from nature in order to forbid any other "scientific" eyes to see them in nature.
Now real plant lovers are doing a good job in order to make these wonderful plants to be known.
Another point:
Most of us believe or were induced to believe a Dyckia species present the very very same look year around and all the time and all its members are the very same looking.
This is not just a mistake but an error!
Some species present just one pattern, one look but the huge and vast majority is not so.
Individuals can be smaller, bigger, whiter, darker, paler, reddisher, greener, than others. Some can bend more, some can arch their leaves more than others and present narrower and thicker leaves or bigger spines and so on and on.
Dyckias are able and prune to make any speed horseman fall from his horseback.
Why?
Because Dyckias are plants undergoing a final transformation, a last play, they present all their cards on the table... They are disappearing and naturally being eliminated from the face of the planet. Their role in nature is finished, it is done and over.
Long ago we had fields of Dyckias everywhere in here. We had no grass fields but Dyckia ones. Mountains were formed carrying Dyckias with them, lifting them up. Dyckias were not born up the hills and mountains! Mountains were formed after them! They are there for they are Sun lovers and up the hills, on rocks and close by the sea are the only sunny resorts to them. The only sunny ones.
Dyckias are among the very first plants to appear and make soil to bushes and trees. They are colonizer plants.
We know almost nothing about Dyckias and their history on Earth.
We are just beginning to unfold their mystery. Here in Brazil we have a very few brilliantly minded botanists who study and search this matter and soon brand new discoveries will be shown.


Constantino Gastaldi March 2014 - Joinville Santa Catarina- Brazil

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