Dyckia sp Morro Dom Bosco Apiúna-SC

 

Dyckias do great if planted together

Notice the dark one Dyckia is a fosteriana Sengés and it is blooming.

 

Dyckia encholirioides xanthic form. Praia de Itaguaçu Santa Catarina

Dyckia encolirioides is only found very close to de sea. It lives listening to de come and going of the waves and also taking salt water sprays.

There are some variations, the rarest is the spinosissima, it presents many more spines along the leaf edges than the type form plant. Also we have a toothless one.

As I said here, Dyckias do not face the world with  legions of the very same looking individuals.

 

Today it is by birthday. 70yo! I will show you a Dyckia neo-jonesiana (Dr. Jones Caldas, a doctor, botanist and friend of mine.)

 Dyckia neo-jonesiana is a southern Brazilian species discovered by my friend  Dr. Jonas Caldas in Rio Grande do Sul. This species is extremely variable in color, they can be found in all shades of white, green, red... It is a very small plant White one.and resembles Dyckia choristaminea.

Let us show it. A white cluster.

Yes, a valid and well described species.

This is a Bill Baker hybrid. A super white twin of Dyckia hb Tarzan

 

Dyckia fosteriana from Sengés complex X Dyckia braunii

 I showed it already recently without mentioning its origins.

Maybe this is the whitest Dyckia I´ve seen.

I made several hybrids from this cross but the majority is made of white long leafed plants .

Two amid them resulted stunted, short leafed and dazzling looking.

Dyckia excelsa, a most variable species. This is a hybrid

 Excelsa  is a wonderful Latim name. It means magnificent, high, exceptional and it is so.

It can be found in green, white, and all the shades in between and also from huge big plants to medium sized ones.

Here down I show a very beautiful hybrid:

Dyckia excelsa white form  X Dyckia delicata White form

Super white scaled beauty.

Xanthocromism amid Dyckias are not that uncommon...

...in fact yellow forms seem to appear  more often in some Dyckia species as Dyckia encholirioides, Dyckia brevifolia, D. ibiramensis...

Yellowish versions of green ones are prune to catch our eyes, attention and desire.

They are found in nature and they are saught after amid Dyckia lovers. All in all all are rare, Dyckias and Dyckia lovers too. Xanthocromic individuals are evem rarer, no doubt.

They transmit this characteristic to their seedlings too.

Let us see some.

Two Dyckia delicata imposing beautiful medium sized hybrids

Above these three pictures show a Dyckia delicata X Dyckia campesina hybrid,
The fountain like shape is a sight to behold the long narrow leaves are slightly bent. This is a small plant not a petit dwarf one. The color here is also impressive Deep white and a touch of rose makes this hybrid unique and singular.

Bellow We see a hybrid I already showed here. It is a complex one as I used an already hybrid plant as a pollen donor or father plant. This was the famous Bill Baker Brittle Star.

Leaves do not bend so there is no fountain looks here but a beautiful explosion effect as the leaves are straight. See it:

 

Dyckia delicata X Dyckia fosteriana Sengés aracnoidea

The result is a small super white many leaved stunning plant.
The better of two worlds together in one only singular plant.

This plant takes and faces heavy rains without any protection.

Its scale cover would be even richer.

I wonder the results when this one primary hybrid is crossed 

using a Dyckia hb Koka Wolff.

Two primary hybrids would make a fantastic complex one.

Four species together in one single plant.

This is the magnificent well known William Baker hybrid Dyckia hb Mercury

 William Baker or Bill for those who knew him did a master job for Dyckias to be kown all over the world. He dealt with ornamental plants in LA California and owned a garden shop. He was a pioneer in Dyckia keeping and he used to sow Dyckia seeds. Those seedlings trays were usually sold. He would pinch out some seedlings he considered promissor or nicely looking and some of the most beautiful Dyckia hybrids came out from this practice. Bill didn´t know accurately what plants where the  father parents and this didn´t bother him a bit.

The years 70s,80s and 90s were invaded by Bill Baker´s hybrid and most of te more nicely looking Dyckia hybrids have some Bill Baker´s  hybrid blood in them all.

The most famous Bill Baker Dyckia hubrid is Dyckia hb Brittle Star.

Bill´s Dyckia species may have been Dyckia marnier-lapostollei, Dyckia fosteriana, Dyckia brevifolia, Dyckia platyphylla as we can spot some of their looks and characteristics amid 
Bill´s hybrids. Bill Baker was a foundation stone on Dyckias!

This is Dyckia hab Mercury BB

We can clearly see fosteriana looks on it.

Dyckia hb Mercury blooms accordingly to Dyckia fosteriana rules in time and form and shape.

What a bout crossing this marvel with this?

We could get a smaller well straight super white leaves. But this is guessing.

Dyckia monticola campoalegrina bicolor

 

I love reophytic Dyckia species

Reophytic plants are those that live close to fast flowing waters . Reophytic Dyckias are mostly found in Rio Grade do Sul and Santa Catarina the two southernmost Brazilian States. Fast flowing rivers are normally alpine ones These plants are only now being fully known and we have a lot to tell about them.

They grow attached to bare rocks and rarely but are found on coarse graveled areas. They frequently submerged by floods nd these waters feed them and also destroys them as they carry big drag woods, giant trunks... 

They present a growing behavior similar to the those Chilean Deuterocohnias. They can form huge compact clumps of twin plants. 

This massive clump of Dyckia brevifolia var.subidensis is made of the very same plant as they are all equal in every sense for they result from head divisions of one only plant.

I dare to say one plant and many heads. Just like the medusae from Greek mythology.

Here two  different Dyckias. 
The smaller one is a non described new species and close to it the long known Dyckia brevifolia.