Right where Dyckia reitzii lives

This Canon separates Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.
Canion Fortaleza in Cambará do Sul-RS
It is a huge, old and beautiful canion.
It is cold up there and temperatures can drop to  -20 Centigrade.
Dyckias if not protect by the bushes will cold burn but they do not die.
Dyckia reitzii stands down to -8 Centigrade without cold burning.

 

 

 

Grasses are burned by cold and dried.
Fire is a constant danger!

 

 

Dyckia reitzii and Dckia reitzii rubra....

...within the canon and on the south wall, the one facing North and the sun.

 

 

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It was cold on the moutains ....

Beautiful native cacti way high on a steep rock....

Sleeping Hydrangeas waiting for the Spring still long ahead...
 

Those ferns are hundreds of years old...
 

The cosy cabin I sleep in for a night....so cold I had to put on the electric sheets.
 

A Brazilian pine tree in a misty and cold morning....

 

 

Phyllis Frieze, a New Yorker from Los Angeles in Urubici, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
.... almost freezing  early in a Brazilian winter foggy morning...
she is crazy about cacti and Dyckias and and the succulents.
 

These are noisy not a bit shy native birds they are ibis related birds.
They are named carucacas.
Here perched on a Brazilian pine tree.
  

Blooming narcissus in a garden downtown São Joaquin in Santa Catarina.
Just to make one know Brazil , in South, it does get cold.
Temperature here was 7 degrees Centigrade by noon.

 

Dyckia hebdingii affinis grandis in habitat

What a sight!
Cacti and Dyckias at the very same spot.
 

My hand serves as comparision for size...
 

 

 

Do not miss noticing the moss carpet here...

Dyckia hebdingii affinis grandis

 

One must be there to believe the tremendously beautiful scenery... 

These are Dyckia hebdingii affinis grandis...and what a marvelous plant!
 

 

Shinning blue white individuals...
 

 

Some suffering and maybe a rubra below....I do not think so.
 

 

Look at this color!
 

 

How old are those?
Many, many!

Look, young seedlings!

 

 

Orchids!!!!
and its... already mature seed pods.

 

Dyckias, cacti, ferns and moss....grass and shrubs....

 

 

 

My booted feet are here noticiable....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some individual variation...

 

 

The moss carpet is a sponge to gather the most needed humidity and also nutrients to cacti and Dyckias.

 

 

These cacti grow with and amid the Dyckias....

See the mosses , the lichens...the rock....

 

 

An almost bare nude individual and a seedling ....

Notice the moss that enables the seeding to survive its early stages.