To celebrate Posting number 100 a ....

...uahuuuu..ohhhhhhh. uuupiiiii..
BRAVO!
Hummm. That would be a good name for a man made hybrid: BRAVO!
Dyckia Bravo is already in construction....(Dyckia fosteriana- Senges-PR and Dyckia brevifolia Ilha da Cotia-SC)

This wonder Dream Dyckia is a Northeastern Santa Catarina highland Dyckia Complex species.
A hundred postings...and I haven´t shown a third of what I wanna I have to show to you.
" I only just begun..."
Come on sit by the fire, take a cup of coffee, relax and enjoy it

Dyckia sp Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro has a very small Dyckia species number.
This one is Dyckia pumila related.
It is a small and very graceful Dyckia from the Samba land.
A Fluminense ( Those who were born in Rio de Janeiro.) one Dyckia.
This small jewel comes from one of the highest Brazilian mountains. It sure does snows up there.
Yes it doe snow in Rio, up the Southern Rio de Janeiro State mountains!

Dyckia sp - Cachoeira Dourada - MG

This Dyckia is a fast growing one and a very good lateral sprout making.
Medium sized and wonderfully colored being heavily scaled shows silver in abandon.
When suffering from lack of water it is wine like colored.
Fine plant.
Poor flier, lousy swimmer never seen outside Brazil.

The new sprouts can be seen again.
The last ones were removed from the mother plant four months ago.

Dyckia dawsoni

Dyckia dawsoni

A classic Dyckia. One of the first Dyckia from the Cerrado to reach
USA. A fine flier and an olympic swimmer gold medalist.
It is present in many of the best man made hybrids

Sprouts of the upper plant.

Dyckias, they love roomy quaters

A Dyckia Spider Witch clump, Dyckias brevifolia and a Dyckia fosteriana- Cambé
living altogether. Contrast in color shape and size creates the live painting...

Santa Catarina Northeastern Dyckia Complex guys.

Dyckia beateae, Sp Vila Cristina, Dyckia brevifolia
and some Dyckia fosteriana X Dyckia delicata young plants.
These huge clay basin ( 80 cm wide) are great for inpot landscaping with Dyckias.

A small Dyckia sp from the Northeastern Santa Catarina Highland Dyckia Complex

This beauty is a small Dyckia that compensates the individual size by clumping.
A very beautiful and intriguing Dyckia

Here you can have an idea of the clump forming habit.
This is a charming small and totally new Dyckia

Clay pots the perfect containers the best pot of all.

Clay! Pottery!
Nothing compares to this for Dyckia keeping.
Nothing would be greener.
Reusable even when in pieces.
These pottery for orchid lovers were made in 1941!
Will be useful for longer yet.

Kitchen containers are great for Dyckias

Hummm...juicy, tastes wonderfully in those hot summer days.
Remember when there was no container for shipping?
Well, that time lies in memory. Everything travels in containers.
Today the same revolution is happening in our kitchens.
Everything comes in pellets and containers from the supermarket or even before it.
Refrigerators and freezers are built in such a way such containers fit perfectly.
Practical, logical and less time consuming in spite of creating much more trash.
These fruit containers are the same around the globe and are perfect of the Dyckia lover.
Insert some more orificies and that is it. Make these hole by heating some metalic instrument.
You even see what is going on inside. Dyckias love it too.
See the drainage material, here some cracked clay tiles.
Just perfect, see the umidity, the roots and everything else.

Dyckia sp - Painel - SC

Dyckia sp Painel-SC
Another rocky beauty from Southwest Santa Catarina.
This is a only one seedling and mostly of it lies ahead.
It is a medium sized plant. A very attractive big toothed Dyckia.
The spines are big and white, very scaled. The plant is dark and there is also a red form.
Completely new It is a gift from a friend that said it seems the one plant we have there is close related to this while pointing to one most magnificent Dyckia Peral da Cabrita.
Hummm..time will reveal.
"O que sera, sera...what will be will be. The future is not our to see, what will be, will be"
Remember that old American song....
One thing is for sure...this guy will be an splendid one.

Dyckia domfelicianensis

Dyckia domfelicianensis
This is another gaucho plant.
Rare everywhere.
Maybe a Dyckia hebdingii relative.
This is not a small plant that like to form clumps of many individuals.
Its flowers are tiny, yellow and not a hint beautiful. The flower stalk tries to reach the clouds.
May be very graceful as isolated individual.

Dyckia pectinata

Dyckia pectinata
- comb like -

Small, graceful and harmless Its teeth are rubbery.
A lousy grower its seeds are not smooth and are the prettiest Dyckia seeds I´ve come to know.
They are chest nut colored and have the texture of felt.

Dyckia saxitalis

Dyckia saxitalis
Some species show the upper side stripes.
Dyckias normally present stripes on the under side of the leaves but some
do that on both sides, this is one of them.

Dyckia sp - Soutwest Minas Gerais

Small, pretty and unknown this Dyckia is a little beauty.
It gets silver combined to intense hues of reds.
Small and likes to pup.
This one is jut a young haven´t bloomed yet.
Another lousy grower, takes ages to grow a millimeter.

Dyckia minarum

Dyckia minarum
The name means Dyckia from mine referring to its native State Minas Gerais.
Remember the film Coal miner´s Daughter?
The basic color are lead and green and the plant is small.
A very nice one.
It seem to be a very slow grower for the Dyckia pattern.

Dyckia sp from Northestern Santa Catarina

Maybe the correct way for refering to the Dyckias of Northeastern Santa Catarina highlands would be Northeastern Santa Catarina Highland Dyckia Complex (NSCHDC). We can easily find more than 20 absolutely new Dyckia species living not that far away from each other. In most cases they may share the same place and this is absolutely amazing.
We have heard of just three other places similar to this but not as large or as rich. These two other sites are in Minas Gerais and the other one in Rio Grande do Sul.
Some say such places have a massive concentration of natural Dyckia hybrids.
An astronomer would say a new species birth place like a Nova, those huge brilliant mega stars.
The place is a Nova in Botanics, a place where new species are born.
In my point of view: Dyckia´s lover Paradise.

This plants here are very narrow leaved and the leaves present a very fine silver line border.
There is a red form of this species.
Flowers are yellow and very attractive. Seeds are big.

Dyckia sp - Piratini - II

The color of this gaucho plant is strikingly attractive, sole green.
Lives on a cliff close to Piratini in Rio Grande do Sul
One can assume the plant is this shade of green for the lack of
nitrogen in the substrate. Dyckias are eager nitrogen feeders.
Most plants remove it from the air some must have it stuck in the substrate to reach for it through the root system.

Dyckia catharinensis another ghost Dyckia

Dyckia catharinensis

Lives in the South half of Ilha de Santa Catarina.
This guy is an islander.
This plant lives well close to the sea water. The light scale pigmentation
is typical of this long ago described species.
Some people insist in stating it does not exist.
So, here it is...another ghost Dyckia
uhoooooooo........oooooooooo...

Dyckia maritima

Dyckia maritima
Lives on rocks the go into the Atlantic sea in Extreme North of Rio Grande do Sul and the extreme south of Santa Catarina. This guy here gets some salt water spray.
Produces little yellow flowers and miserable small seeds.

Father Raulino Reitz, a true botanist!

Dyckia reitzi
This is the snow Dyckia.
This guy lives on several points of the South all so high it snows there.
Yes, it snows in Brazil! Occasionally of course but it does!
The temperature in this Dyckia home may drop down to 18 degrees centigrades below zero, way down below freezing.
But if you keep this guy at such temperature for more than just hours it will perish.

Father Raulino Reitz was fond and mad about bromeliads.
He was known as the Gravata Father.
Yes this botanist was a priest too....or this priest was a botanist too?
There are some very attractive other forms of this Dyckia species. there is one already well known red form, a least know silver and a gorgeous striped form.
This one here came from the father collection.
This is the true form of Dyckia reitzi.

This is for you...my African friend.

I know this ain´t Dyckia.
This is for my African friend.
For her eyes only.
She is crazy about flowers.
Once she saw the lions, the zebras and also the mamba.
Now she lives in Portugal...
and she is my friend.
This is for you.

From Northeastern Santa Catarina - Pigeon blood colored.

Yes,I know I already shown this beauty.
I just think it is wonderfully worthwhile to see it again. Ain´t right?
Watch the saliva, close your mouth, you will need for the drooling
That will flow for the ahead postings...

Dyckia sp - Cuiabá

This plant is another species from the heart of South America.
Cuiabá region in Mato Grosso.
Small but not that tiny it is impressive.
The color is chestnut like.

Dyckia pumila - Cuiabá-MT

Dyckia pumila
It is a graceful small species.
Comes in many shades of silver, red/wine, green.
Have a big range in the heart of South America.
The plant tries to compensate for its small size by clumping.
It is a compulsive shooter.
You do no have to care for seeds to have cents of them in a short period of time.

Dyckia sp Perau da Cabrita - A Santa Catarina native Highness.

Buckets! Drool buckets!
Take a gigantic bath towel, you will need it...

...close your mouth...

Perfect in every detail:
spination, color, form, structure, size...