Dyckia fosteriana ... you may drool buckets it deserves the flow...

Baby, sorry to inform you but those plants we see in the Internet under the name of Dyckia fosteriana hardly looks like one. In most of the cases they present a slight resemblance or something that may reminds you of Dyckia fosterina. Go on...stop here and look the Dyckia fosteriana pictures here and go on...take a strol in the internet images that claim to be Dyckia fosteriana. You will be open mouthed for sure and you will drool again.
Dyckias are all easy goers, they make sex to any other Dyckia no matter the species. They are all sex maniacs, compulsive addicted ones. This species does not pups and so.. so It has to be reproduced by seeds. But for this to happen we must have seeds of their own, true and pure strain seeds. They self fertilize. One must isolate completely the flowering plant in order to reproduce fosterianas. Yeah, this lady is a tramp and also a trap for those who trust on their dearing producers. Today I feel absolutely safe to say that outside Brazil and even here Dyckia fosteriana is one of the rarest plants of all!
Here you see Dyckia fosteriana!Not just an only one picture. All sorts and kinds and varieties except Dyckia fosteriana robustior are pictured for you to see. Here you see the form type locality and the surroundings varieties. Always in Paraná.
Dyckias interbreed easily and this species to not pups! This species do not set lateral sprouting.
So people rely on seeds to propagate it. But people pick up seeds from a fosteriana stalk flower fruits but forget that open fertilization is not valid to produce true species. Money comands!
Fosteriana crosses avidly with any other flowering Dyckia no matter the species.
What we see is something far, far, far away from being Dyckia fosteriana.
Collectors trust in their source as they were idols. Remember it is illegal and totally out of law to take any species of Dyckias out of Brazil. Smugglers are all over and money and crime run together like horse and carriage.
Fosterianas are long known classic Dyckia outside Brazil. The longer a species is out from its place the more weird and odd it looks adding to this is the fact that Dyckia fosteriana do not pups and these jewels are multiplied only by seeds.(...or some magical new other forms not suit for the ordinary gardener.)
Remember this species never, never, never pups! Never is a hard word to state but in this case it is easy to see how valid it is.
Look at you Dyckia fosteriana and get your own conclusions.
I do love hybrids, some are Dream Dyckias but we must know who is who or what is what.
A good guide on Dyckias is what we miss here. I can not trust on black and white ancient pictures and historically partial not a bit faithful field reports.
Recently somebody stated Dyckia fosteriana are common somewhere in East. No! Plants people claim to be Fosteriana are common place everywhere, anyplace as I see. Look at the internet!
True Dyckia fosteriana plants are extremely rare here, there and everywhere.
Scroll down this page to see true Dyckia fosteriana.
They may be reddish if they are rubra form and have being hosed or have taken heavy rain.Water washes the silver scales away and if the plant is a rubra form it may appear to be reddish or greenish if not rubra form.
Dyckia foteriana is an enchanting plant one of the most beautiful plants on Earth!
Adding to its looks, very good looks indeed we have conspicuous orange flowers.
They form clumps by division and never offsetting lateral sprouts.

Southwest Bahia young Dyckias sp seedlings

This is not a Dyckia hebdingii. This plant comes from way up North in Bahia.
It is tremendously beautiful plant.
These are young seedlings. The adult plant is show in the following post.
The name ? Well this species has no name up to now.

In my garden, the most fortunate one for I have the pleasure to have an adult and
three young seedlings. I will tell you the story behind this adult plant I present to you in the post prior to this one.
One night I got a phone call from a Friend far way North Brazil. There it is always warm while here in South the winter cold make us tremble. We are so far apart the time and the climate changes completely.
She said to me: I put in the mail the most beautiful Dyckia I had here. It is going in its vase. The vase is an native Indian old pottery. Take care.
I could not sleep for three days and nights. Finally at the end of the fifth day the package arrived. The card box had being wrapped in brown paper three times and when finally I saw the plant...the disaster: everything was a total mass. The plant was in a most miserable state, not eve a single leaf intact. The valious pottery in a thousand pieces.
My friend wrapped that card box in brown paper so many times she forgot what was up and what was down and wrote this side up .....the plant traveled more than five thousand kilometers up sided down and worst: remember it was planted....
The night she called me and asked how was the plant and the vase I answered : fine!
Today, three years after, the plant turn out to be out from this ordinary world.
That is why friends are for!
...and yes: the plant is fine.....now.

Dyckia sp Southwest - Bahia

This is a nameless species from Southwest Bahia
It looks like a Dyckia Hebdingii but this is a Southern species
and Bahia is more than 2,5 km North.

Enlarge it and drool over this image. It deserves the drooling...

Do you like what you see here?
It is flowering, look there amid the foliage it is the beginning
of a flower stem... Will it be selfertile? Maybe, maybe.
The plant is not larger the your opened hand.
A Dream Dyckia a wish most wished one and outrageously rare.

Dyckia sp Northeastern Santa Catarina

Some Dyckia blooms do not deserve a second glance but
some species produce beautiful flowers.

This flower here would suit the cut flower market.

Dyckia sp - Southwest Minas Gerais

Dyckia sp - Southwest Minas Gerais

This is a small plant and easily takes as a Dyckia remotiflora but it isn´t for sure.
It doesn´t grows bigger than this.
The leaves are broader that those of the remotiflora species and the under side leave is intense silver and the plant blooms in beautiful red flowers.

Dyckia remotiflora var. montevidensis

Dyckia remotiflora var. montevidensis
Minas do Camaquã - RS

This species has a wide range in nature compresses Uruguay, parts of Brazil
and Argentina. This is the reason for the varieties to exist.

Dyckia remotiflora

Dyckia remotiflora
Santana da Boa Vista - RS

Dyckia platyphylla

Dyckia platyphylla
Comes from Northeastern Brazil

This is an old classic Dyckia species. Long used as hybridizer in order to produce white teeth
hybrids. This species has many faces while developing and won´t show the final mask until blooming. The flowers are small orange and produced in a branched stem.
Under leaves are silver and contrast well with the upper surface of the leaves.

Dyckia distachia rubra

Dyckia distachia rubra
Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul east border
This plant is a reofitic one, lives on rocks close to running waters.

Dyckia distachia has a very peculiar behavior, odd, weird and a only one among all Dyckias.
The plant lifts up itself as it gets older! The plant is got out from the substrate by its own efforts.
Its elder leaves get downward and in doing so the plant is lifted up and as the plant has a very short trunk is seems the plants is in the air but...
If you look for a trunk among the old death leaves you will see just a stem as thick as a match.
This thin stem is the stoloniferous appendix link from the mother plant and from it the roots come out.
This behavior comes from the fact the plant tries to suspend itself from upleved waters.
This behavior avoids days on end of being submerged by flood waters.
This plant is one of the rarest plant on Earth!
It was seen by the first time now, in this century.
Comes from a very cold area. It is a plant from a cloudy high plato.
A rocky jewel plant that produces yellow to faint orange flowers.
Also, its spines are tiny smaller than the dot of the letter "i".

Dyckia distachia

Dyckia distachia
aurea form

This is one of the most charming Dyckias.
Small, succulent and bloom in conspicuous big yellow gold flowers
It is a reofitic Dyckia native to Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul border.
This form in particular is not known the wilderness spot
This plant was givem by father Raulino Reitz to a friend of him in Joinville.
Father Raulino Reitz was a Catholic priest who was deeply fond of Bromeliads and studied them in deep. A most famous botanist from Santa Catarina. There is a number of plants named in his honor including Dyckia reitzii.
This is a tremendous rare form of a rare species.
The whole clump here fits well and roomingly in your hand. This is small!

Dyckia leptostachya

Dyckia leptostachya
Estrada Serra do Herval - RS

This is an old known Dyckia and was used to color some hybrids.
This plant went out the country inside the first
Parodia cacti searchers´ luggage time before this was declared
a crime by Brazilian law.
Blooms in conspicuous deep orange/red flowers.
Wild species are extremely hard to adapt to any culture.
There is a green form but rarer then the rubra form.
The rubra form is considered much more beautiful.
Also we know of a deep silver wild form of Dyckia leptostachya.

Dyckia remotiflora var, tandilensis

Dyckia remotiflora var. tandilensis
This species is very attractive.
Small Silver/lead colored
A Southern species
Occurs in Uruguay and also in Southernmost part of Brazil.

Maybe a Dream one will come out

Something was done right here... 100% germination?
These seeds were stored in the refrigerator for months...
At this point the main danger are fungi.
Fungi are literally everywhere and this here must be treated againd fungus now and before this the substrate must be sterilized.
Why so many?
Oh, I have friends... and a Dream one may come out from this here.
ah, this are hybrid seeds, Dyckia sp Capmpo Alegre X Dyckia marnier lapostollei Goiás form.

Dyckia hebdingii or something out from this plain world

Ah, if I was to choose one, only and just one plant, a single species among all I would choose this one: Dyckia hebdingii the blue lady of the southern rocks.
Small and not that small,
compact and well arranged rosette,
harmonious and graceful,
blue/silver and...and...out from this plain,drab and faint world.

When the Almighty Creator came back by the fifth time, ( It was needed something always went wrong...or was in need of a repair... and why not a total remaking...) The Guy went South... He had Buenos Aires and the Tango in mind. As He had dance the samba in Rio the night before He was quite late... In its way he stopped in Rio gande do Sul. Just to take a look... on what He had done...

...The Almighty let fall from His backpack a most wonderful plant He was planning to cultivate in Paradise. Three, just three fell... one is this one here, the other as the Almighty backpack was zipper opened, fell a bit before in Santa Catarina and it came to be Dyckia Perau da Cabrita.
The third one He picked up and put back into His luggage and His way back to Rio...good things should be seem many more times Samba and our mulatas ...those gorgeous coffee skinned women in Rio de Janeiro.
Ah, the third one? This is for those of you to cultivate...in Paradise, in Lord´s Garden...

Look, The almighty was plenty in reason:
this rock lady is magnificent!

Ah, could it be better?

No, it was not for no reason it was into the Creator´s backpack...

...out from this drab and plain human flower pots...

Ah, I would like you to see it when the angels are singing... listen...listen....

This for sure was the " réserve du Patron".

...missing the skies above?

Dyckia alba - Pedra do Segredo - Caçapava do Sul - RS

Dyckia alba
Alba means white. Sometimes science chooses names to bear confusion.
Alba here refers to some cotton like structure a kind of panicule in the flower stalk.
Dyckia lanosi flora would be a much suitable name here, but...