Dyckia encholirioides var spinosissima

This is a smaller encholirioides that the type form and it is found in a very small area of Santa Catarina North litoral . I found this plant withing the sea water in the come and going of the waves on the sand. An unusual high tide dislodged the plant from its place an there it was. I rescued it , my spouse wife Raquel and me. This was decades ago.

It was a half a meter trunk and  thick as a man thigh. I cut of the smashed leaves and plant the thunk on a shallow ceramic  dish like basin.Today it is a pending huge three heads plant, a piece to be show in a botanic garden. 

Dyckia encholirioides lives very very close to the sea and it is always listening to the waves and watching the come and going of tides. It is never found away from the sea. It loves the scorching sun exposition and most of the times it is consorted with grasses and other plants it makes possible to live in this situation.

Its trunk, believe it or not, it is never visible. It is ever and always protected by the leaf bracteas of the death leaves. This explains its ability to survive and love  its place in nature.

The leftovers from the dead leaves enables the plant to survive the most  challenging territory. The plant takes salty sprays and scorching sun rays and  lives on exposed rocks or sandy bars.

Now we shall understand what goes on there on its trunk, a true nature´s marvel...

What is on the trunk ?

Old leaf bracts and lichen (algae and mushroom) . This lichen is a saprophytic one. it thrives on dead vegetable. It makes a protector layer and keeps the trunk within the dead bracts well protected against  heat and salt water.

This consortium, algae, mushroom and Dyckia deserves better understanding.

Dyckia encholirioides

 

Dyckia encholirioides

 

Dyckia encholirioides it grows near the Atlantic Ocean salt water

 

The highly integumented blossom enables the plant to survive super sunny an windy spots on rocks and sand bars close to the sea. 

It takes and relishes salt water sprays.

It can be found fromSanta Catarina litoral till São Paulo south one.

Can be found  in several forms, bald ones, xanthic, multispina, gigantic ones and small ones.

Dyckia encholirioides needs and deserves a better understanding. It is a most fantastic species.

Dyckia rondonopolitana a beauty from Mato Grosso

 

Dyckia julianae, descrobed as species it is in fact a natural hybrid

 

Dyckia and company

 

Dyckia brevifoia var. subidensis

This is my favorite Dyckia.

Succulent, harmoniously small and not pigmy. It is fantastic and it is a run away pretty beast,no pot restrains it.

Dyckia hb Mercury a Bill Baker beauty

 Bill Baker, no long amid us, Dyckia lovers, was a pioneer in Dckia keeping, seeling and hybridizing them.

He rarely baptized his hybrids if he did. People used to by young hybrid plants not showing their final looks. Hybrids will show the final looks after blooming.

Some of his hybrids are  complex ones. Dyckia hb Mercury is one of them. Looking at its flowers we see clearly a Dyckia fosteriana  blood in it. Also we ca see Dyckia marnier-lapostollei as one of the first in its genetic line.

Bill lived in LA California and most of the new comercial Dyckia hybrids are descent from his hybrids.

I like Mercury as it is big enough to impress and even so small enough to fit gracefully in a common shelf .

This plant was sent to me by a Bill Baker close Friend some 20 years ago.

Dyckia secundifolia

 

Dyckia excelsa X Dyckia marnier-lapostollei. What a beauty!

This plant is not well protected from the heavy rain, this explains the bald areas.

 

Dyckias for the eyes delight

 

...just for the sake of being beautiful.

The yellowish one is a hybrid, brevifolia X reitzii and the other one is a very old Dyckia fosteriana var. Jariaíva-PR. See the very old trunk there.

A close Dyckia potiorum, not distic, related species.

 This is a totally green species from mato Grosso do Sul.

I does looks to be a Dyckia potiorum related plant.

Blooming here in my garden after  more than ten years of cultivation.