Dyckia magnifica

 Dyckia magnifica

First, some pictures, comments will follow on Sunday JULY 28TH

 Hello Dearest, I am am happy to be back, to show and tell about Dyckias and their fellows.

Next post will show Dyckia magnifica a recent formally introduced to the word of Dyckias by Dr. Henrique Brunecke who maintained the name I suggested decades ago.

Also I shall thank Mr. Sidiney Rodrigues who helped me to get this Blog on its track again. 

Constantino Gastaldi Joinville-SC Brazil

Deut...ups! Dyckia brevifolia var. subidensis

Above, we see Dyckia brevifolia var. subidensis running away from its pot.

 The clump bellow is with me since 1976.

We lived in a super big historic house  close to the mighty Itajaí-açu river. My mother was born in 1912 in a very large farm and was raised by her brothers and sisters since my grandparents died to malaria.

in 1976 my mother fund a Dyckia brevifolia  floating on our beach, a sandy bank just 6 meters long. She rescued the plant and brought it home. 

This plant  is a giant clump now and a vivid remembrance from my dearest mother.

It gets full of flowers stalks in mid September and I will show it here.

 

Above we see a "spilled out" brevifolia clump.

This is incredibly beautiful and it takes decades to happen.

Encholirium magalhesei

Dyckias and Encholiriuns are two well separated genus but...
...they are so close related they interbreed easily.
Recently amid a few Brazilian botanists there was a tentative of uniting all those plants into genus Dyckia. It did not work!

Encholiriuns are typically Brazilian plants, there is none native to any other country.

 

The flower stalk is terminal but long before the plant dies it emits a lateral new plant and life goes on.

A a first glace one can get confused but in time we see the new sprout will also bloom and die.

Notice the quantity of pollen. Here I used a ear swab.

I made self and alsosome bigeneric hybrids here. 

Dyckia delicata and Dyckia pseudodelicata, let us dare to compare

 

Above a Dyckia pseudodelicata

Below a  Dyckia delicata

It requires an expert to tell them apart. 
Just looking at them both you won´t tell them apart.

The flowers ae the big diferencial. Dyckia pseudodeliata has bigger  flowers and the have a hint of orange.

Mine did not bloomed under cultivation up to now

Also according to Dr. Jones Caldas, Dyckia delicata tend to present a flat dish like crown while pseudodelicata shows a ball shaped one.

Both have rubbery spines and present many leaves both are polileaved or multifeaved plants.

Clearly both are very similar to one another

A NOVELTY: DYCKIA PSEUDODELICATA, FALSE DYCKIA DELICATA

Dyckia pseudodelicata
(Dr. Henrique Bünecker)

Dyckia pseudodelicata  is a recent introduction to Dyckia world

Already decribed it grows in a ravine ina particular farm in the municipality of Jari in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. This is 280km away from the place Delicata isfound in nature. By car, it takes some 4 hours to get to Jari from Barros Cassal where you find Dyckia delicata. 

It occurs in green, white, chestnut colors and all the shades in between

Dyckia sulcata white

Here we must think about why some individuals are white and others are green.

Well, this is exactely what we have here, diversity.

Not all individual are the very same in any popupation. Everything changes and all is changing all the time.

Those are tickets to Heaven. If the weather gets hotter, sunnier and the water gets scarce the white individuals will assure the species  survivel.

They can get much more sun without burning, they keep water easier than the green ones and can stand higher temperatures.

Notice the tips of the leaves, how the edges fold to form the terminal spine.

 

 

Dyckia delicata

Here I am experimenting in my Blog. Many changes occured while I could not get my Blog back on its track. I am learning, recovering and so on. Yes, I have much to show and tell.

Maybe I must buy a new PC, I still use an old navigator, Windows 7. An updated one request a brand new PC. Today I can`t get one.

 

Dyckia sulcata

 Bellow you can see some of the  characteristic details that make this species well noticeable:

- The tips of the leaves. The two bare marginal lines are united to a third one, the flat lower surface of the leaf turns into a line to form a triedric final and unique super hard spine.

- The Dyckia lines are also noticeable on the upper surface of the leaf. This is impressive and rare and turns the plant very rigid and sturdy