Some of my Journey to South in Brazil....

 Dyckia brevifolia

OBS: This here is just a bit of what you will see on the next postings.

I am for a few hours back home and will be going North tomorrow, Monday.

So this is just an appetizer of what you will see here.

I faced freezing cold temperatures as it is winter in Brazil and I  am in South and in highhills regions. I could collect seeds and also found some extremely dazzling gorgeous new regional variations of some of the most beautiful "must haves" Brazilian Dyckias.

Dyckia brevifolia is a reophytic species. 

It grows on rocks where the mighty Itajaí River waters pass flowing fast amid these rocks.
Notice Dyckia brevifolia may present a leftover of frosting, a very mild one.
Notice also the proximity to the fast flowing cascading water water  and the rocky terrain.
Dyckia brevifolia has one of the most perfect and elegant rosettes among Dyckias.
Bellow you see seedlings and not a seedling with its sprouts.

 Below, we see one Stunning Dyckia sp hebdingii affinis minor
This is already way down south in Rio Grand do Sul. 
This is an adult plant of a  small sized hebdingii variety.
Notice the cactus growing close to it.
Cacti and Dyckias may share homes in nature.

 

Below and above we see Dyckia hebdingii.
Notice the bluish overall color, the rock and not rocky terrain and the ever present moss.
Mosses help  Dyckia seeds  germination and also act as a source of food and water to the seedlings.
Mosses are sponges that hold water and humidity for the tender young seedlings but even so a seedling in nature is a very hard to find event and I guess less than one seedling comes out from more than many thousands seeds.

Above, Dyckia sp hebdingii aff. minor 
This stunning beautiful plant presents some regional varieties and I 
 am not able to tell which one is the most beautiful. Minor has short stiff and straight leaves and of course, the plant rosette is much smaller than the hebdingii type form, bellow. 

Dyckia hebdingii

They present a bigger rosette than minor does and presents longer leaves. 

It is evident they are very similar to one another and once out from the field you will require an expertize eye on them to distinguish one from the other.

 Dyckia hebdingii 

In my poor opinion: this is one of the most spectacular plants.

Below a Dyckia reitzii rubra form damaged by the intense frost.

Just a severe frost can burn a Dckia reitzii leaf.

The temperature here recently dropped to -12 Centigrade.

Yes, here in Brazil, Cambará do Sul. 
Reitzii is a magnificent plant which blooms fantastically 
and in a unique way among all Dyckias.

Here the reitzii bloom by the abyssal depth of the huge canyon.

Quite a sight!

Dyckia reitzii initiating  blooming by the Fortaleza Canyon South wall.

Notice the beauty of those natural plant arrangements.

This is the young flower stalk...ever very short in Dyckia reitzii and deeply spectacular.

 

Dyckia reitzii rubra.

This is endemic to a limited small area among green regular Dyckia reitzii plants.

Note:
I am now leaving my home in Joinville  to another journey this time  North.
It is Monday morning and I will not be back home until Saturday.
I am taking my laptop with me and this time the proper cable to allow me to download the pictures from my camera to show you more. What you just saw above is  a sample of what I´ve seen. I took more than 400 pictures and you are invited to dream with me...yes, it always seems to be a dream...
Thank you for laying your eyes and minds on my blog.
I tried my best to handle your eyes  in the fields.
I hug you...in a Brazilian way...tight and festively.



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Well, today by noon I will be leaving on a visit to some of the most  beautiful places here in Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul to take pictures of cacti and Dyckias in  wilderness.

The next postings will be made by my Lap Top Computer.

I will be visiting many  places for six days and I shall take your eyes with me.

Wish me luck and may I return home safe, sound and happy.

First stop: 

Subida, Dyckia brevifolia home  by the Itajaí-açu River

almost in the center of Santa Catarina State.

Constantino




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Hybrid Dyckias ans some of their mysteries....

Dyckia hb Liz Taylor above and below.

above they are wet by the morning mist, today, Sunday July 22d.

Liz Taylor results from the crossing of Dyckia magnifica and Dyckia delicata rubra form.

Why Liz Taylor?

I already told that here. They were made the day Elizabeth Taylor died.

..and who is those green plants there?

Well Dyckia Liz Taylor are still young and are only those marked bluish/grey white here. Just those are Dyckia hb Liz Taylor. The others are seedlings that came from seeds from very same seed pods but They are not Liz Taylor and they are not simply ´cause Liz Taylor bust be those I named and not all those from the very same grex! The Green ones ( I guess they will be red ones!) maybe will be Richard Burton or Rock Hudson ones but they are not Liz Taylor.  No matter the fact they are seedlings from the very same seed pod Liz Taylor came from.

Not only the parents make a certain hybrid but its phenotype or the way they look!

When one sows hybrid seeds, seeds made with two different species, may come up not with an army of the very same individuals but with a vast array of different ones and even we can not a pair amid those those.

We name every different looking plants with different names no matter the parents being the very same.

Dyckias are intriguing and exclusive plants we can not deal with or

 take as they were just like Mendel´s beans.

We barely know Dyckias enough to remove the first veil of our ignorance on them and it seems this veil has many folds...

 ...now imagine their hybrids.

 Look here above and bellow....

Maybe I will name the green one (I am almost sure it will get red from November on.)

What about Dyckia hb Liz Taylor Emerald?

...and the one bellow would be......

Who knows it?

Bellow we see another grex from a Dyckia cross using two already hybrid Dyckias..

We can not find  two equal looks here.

See here bellow the three parts of a seed pod. 

This was produced by a single Dyckia flower and a single ovary. 

The ovaries in Dyckia flowers are trilobed and each part may be fertilized by different fathers or different pollen grain with different genetics information. This may result in different sizes of each part and this is not that hard to find.

Seeds within the very same third part of a seed pod may be different and result 

in different looking plants too.

So the very same parents or the very same parents and the very same seed pod may not be enough to produce the very same looks in each of the resulting seedlings.

When someone name a hybrid  this person is naming a plant and a second one  or no matter how many must present the very genetics information the the very same looks.

Very same parents may not be enough to produce  the very same hybrid plants.

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Dyckia braunii, one of the cutest small ones...

Dyckia braunii
An extremely white and beautiful small Dyckia species native to up North in Goiás close to Tocantins border. This is a warmth lover plant. Flower stalks are delicate and fall on the plant.

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Brand new! Brand new found Dyckia species from  up North in Espírito Santo.

This was found by Robson Lopes close  to the city of Jaguaré in Espírito Santo, Brazil.

Robson himself brought it to me last November.

The plant lives high on a huge vertical rock and it was said it was a 

surprise to find out a new Dyckia species so close to the city. 

The reason for this was the almost unreachable spot on that rock.

So this is a totally unknown Dyckia species.

 

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Dyckia pulquinensis

Dyckia pulquinensis is native to Pulquina region in Bolivia.
This is an arid semi-desert region in the hearts of this South America country.
This plant here came to my garden as a gift from friends in Germany.
The plant was living in Berlin a city with a strong history and one of the most important places for the human knowledge and social behavior.
A toast to Berlin and its courageous, polite, industrious, illustrious people!

"Prosit Berlin!!!!"
In my heart I am also a Berliner!!!
This is an extremely rare an beautiful plant and I am waiting for its first blooming here in my garden.
   

 

Dyckia hb Brittle Star a Bill Baker masterpiece

Dyckia hb Brittle Star

...always a pleasure to look at.

 

Dyckia hb Raquel

This hybrid I myself made and honors Raquel Zeitz.
 

 

 

 

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Dyckia hb Dancing Dervish

Dyckia hb Dancing Dervish

 This marvel I made by using two o the most  white frosted Dyckia species.

Dyckia goehringii and Dyckia marnier-lapostollei var.giant blue.

 

The bended down leaves were inherited from Dyckia goehringii and 

resemble the opened arms of a dancing dervish.

This hybrid is still to show its first blooming

and its seeds for sure will give rise to some  unusual beauties.

Dyckia estevesii

 

Some seedlings after many years can assume this shaping.
Seeds can not be made without help.

A round form exists with the very same flowers

It all calls for a variation and not a species .

It is extremely "viviparous" as it emits many, many sprouts.

"Trunks" can be very long, meters long in fact and this may explain its distribution in wilderness.

It is a warm lover and won´t tolerate frosts.

 

Dyckia hb Big Nasty...wow!

This plant is living for the second day in my garden.

It speaks no Portuguese but can teach me a lot of English, Texas accented...
It can say just two words in Portuguese: 
Ah meu Deus! Oh, my God!  

The pictures bellow were taken by Frank, my friend in Texas, who kindly
 attended to my asking to show them here for us all see them.

Notice the huge teeth and the rich frosting...

 

So beautiful ...

It is supposed to be another Bill Baker creation.

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Dyckia reitzii, a Dyckia from the clouds...

Dyckia reitzii

It honors our most important XX century Bromeliad lover and conosseur 

Father Raulino Reitz.

This is a cold lover Dyckia and it thrives up on the tops of the highest South Brazilian  mountains

  from 1500 to 1800 meters high points. It is used to frosts, frozen rain, icicle, 

snow and endures temperatures bellow -20 degrees Celsius.

 

 It won´t flower if kept under continuous warmth.

The plant demands some cold in order to prosper.