Dyckia hebdingi grandis - the ball Dyckia

Close your mouth... or you are going to run out of saliva
for the next one.

Dyckia julianae once more...

Colorful ... Imagine Vincent painting it...

...are you drooling?

I ever do!

Say ahhhhh and then ohhhhhhh....

Dyckia sp Apiacás-MT
Bowl baby! This a majesty.
Drool baby! This is gorgeous.

It reminds of Dyckia macedoi only prettier.
Small, colorful and absolutely rare,
it is a fantastic jewel.
Poor swimmer and a lousy flier it is never seen out his
homeland.
Absolutely magnificent species!

Dyckia sp Apiacás-MT
Cachoeira do apiacás- MT

Dyckia Red Devil

As hybrid it is a poor seed maker and a very good pollen donator.
Shoots promptly and the pups are very well attached to their mother plant.
It is hard to remove them.

Dyckia Red Devil
Devilishly beautiful
It is not that small or any small. Very hard touching.
This American hybrid is a show and a well known one. Here it is very difficult to get hybrid dyckias from abroad.
Funny enough Dyckias use to fly and swim out of the country and extremely rarely they do the way back.
This one manged do do so..
A superb hybrid.

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

Dyckia alba
It is a huge plant. Oh, no, no, nothing is white here.
There is a kind of cotton like structure around flowers hence the name alba.
Science when being imaginative does a lousy job..remember, it can not be creative.
Science deals with facts but even so omits some facts when it is convenient.
Dyckia, for instance, means nothing. Some strange guy got the merit for a whole genere of South American plants, and this guy had never stepped a foot here.
The plant had a name long before and a name used in all the countries where the plant occurs, a native Tupy-Guarani name. Gravatá means spiny pineapple like plant.
Yes, GRAVATÁ, it couldn´t be more appropriated.
Science recognizes many mistakes of its own. Science keeps on coming back in conclusions.
That is one science highlights.
What about being fair?
Dyckia sounds torturing strange to us and ....a bit pornographic too!
Dyckia is a ridiculous name to us Latin guys. Meaningless to say the least.
Oh, the guy was a prince...but everybody was at that time. They were everywhere.
But he cared about plants, ... it was a modism at that time, every prince and king imitated Queen Victory. Everybody wanted to know what strange creatures there was in the New World.
And then .... hummmmmm........
GRAVATÁ!!!
What about thinking?
Intead of Dyckia brevifolia GRAVATA BREVIFOLIA?
Superb, no, no... the name the idea of correcting a mistake.

Dyckia noelli - once more

The color contrast here amazes me.
Dyckia noelli is well scaled on the under leaf to deal with the fierce sun.
It up turns the leaves to refrigerate itself reflecting the sun in torrid sunny summer days.
I t freezes frequently in winter but never for more than hours.
This magnificent plant is a sight to behold and beauty as this should be kept this way:
like a true majesty.
...On your knees, on your knees baby!
Little black plastic pots are for sudits, leftovers.

Dyckia sp São Marcos-RS

From down below teeth are blackened...maybe from the bad habit of cigar smoking.
Then from up above some clearing. Nothing like a good dental whitening, isn´it?

Jokes apart the plant is superb, big! Colorful, blue/silver all over.
Something to keep you open mouthed and the saliva
running profusely...
A huge dream Dyckia!
Look closely soon it will flower .

Dyckia sp from Bahia ( not Dyckia hebdingii)

When something is very very good maybe the only way to get even better is
duplicating.
Look it is just like in a mirror.
Do you like it?

Some ladies can´t get away from the mirror...

Dyckia hebdingii

Above in a rainy day.
It rains on Dyckias!
There is no Dyckia in any desert.
It rains on Dyckia as it rains on any other plant here.
The difference lies on the way Dyckia deals with the water
...not in the way it copes without it.
It rains equally on the banana plant.
Dyckias live on rich organic drainable substrate and also in a very drainable terrain specially rocks.
Rocks are the first the get wet when it rains and the first to dry out when it ceases.

This position prevents the water to get stuck in the center of the crown.

Dyckia hebdingii
I love it and who doesn´t?

WHEN SOLE GREEN IS ASTONISHING BEAUTIFUL

Dyckia sp Piratini - RS
We do not need to be red or silver to be gorgeous...

... magnificent ....

Dyckia sp - Entrepelados-RS

The rosette center gets silvery purple.
This Dyckia has a red phase that is absolutely perfect in terms of beautiness.

Maybe a smoking habit turned the teeth so blackened........
A myriad of small black spines...
This plant enjoys biting you and removing skin...Bloody dyckia!

Dyckia sp - Cascata - Northeastern Santa Catarina

I love this small jewel.
These are young seedlings from Northeast Santa Catarina.
It gets redder than this and the rosettes looks like parabolic antens
to capture all the sun rays.
Look at the wideness of the leaves and the spination.
A very good looking species.
Strikingly beautiful in fact.
These plants maybe the only ones alive.
They were rescued from the ashes of a campfire.

I didn´t believe my eyes when I first met this princess but it was real.
I had to touch it, have it, love it....

From Santa Catarina with love.....

Dyckia insignis - comes from Paraguay

Dyckia insignis
Insignis means insignificant referring to the low number of flowers in a flower stalk.
But in spite of being just half a dozen they are huge flowers in a slender flower spike.
It is not self fertile!


It is not a big plant but gets large as it keeps on dividing itself.

Dyckia sp Colider-MT
shining Dyckia

This plant really shines under the bright sun.
Here pictures taken in a rainy day.
There is a fabulous variation of it being pigeon blood red ever.
This is a compulsive breeder. Produces scented orange flowers.
Totally mad about pupping.

Another Dyckia that does not exist!

Dyckia coximensis
There is just a hint of it in terms of excicata at the Barbosa Rodrigues Herbarium.
People lost track of this baby so they affirm it does not exist. So this is another non existent Dyckia. This time Dyckia coximensis. Another ghost Dyckia.
Here they are in my garden safe and touchable these non existent plants.
They turn deeply red and these two have to much to go ahead.
This non existent Dyckia pups a lot and shoots long distances.
Soon there will be plenty of it to distribute among friends and I hope they do no go on running and yelling with lifted arms...ghost, ghost.....

...and I love you so...down into the gaucho territory

Some beauties never ceases to get me admired.
This is a jewel of Grotão da Nega - Boqueirão do Leão.
A charming little gaucho town in Rio Grande do Sul.
Thrives on stony river bank in a deep carved small valley.
Produces tiny little seeds on tall strong sticks that try to scrape the sky.

Dyckia disthachia aurea

This is a small reofitic from west Santa Catarina
Produces conspicuous yellow gold flowers;
Has a very peculiar comportment as the older leaves turns down and lift the plant from the rocks this way keeping the plant longer way from the flood waters. Certainly this attitude counts n o matter the plant being submerged by flood waters periodically.
The spines are no much bigger than the dot of this letter"i".
Shoots profusely producing compact masses of plants.
Extremely rare outside Brazil.
This plant pictured descend from one Father Raulino Reitz gave t a friend of him here in Joinville-SC.
The invader weeds were not removed for you to compare sizes. ( This weed is an international nonsense among hobbyist around the world.)
The plant illustrated here is a young adult one.

About blooming pretty babies ...

Look closely they are emitting flower spikes.
This flowers yellow almost orange.
They are Dyckia brevifolia and Dyckia fosteriana babies.

These are almost there with their spikes..

Contrary to Orchids. With Dyckias you do not have to loose your teeth to see seed flower.
I may take just two years for you to see the colors of a seed bloom.
Also you can do some bettering of your own.
These pics were taken in a cloudy rainy day.
Yes Dyckias take rain... and here in Northeastern Santa Catarina it rains a lot year around.
A good drainage is imperative for the Dyckia surviving here.
Dyckias in fact enjoy rainy days ( and Mondays?). They grow better when water is at their disposal. The fact they resist dryness does not mean they enjoy and relish a waterless long term. They suffer, take ages to dye, but they do!
Drainage! Key for success among these rocky ladies.

Dyckia goehringii-III or Beauty strikes again, this time tripling...

I am young, in fact a young D. goehring seedling but I can already reveal
my beauty and magnificence.
Think, my dear, think...
Beauty?
Where you are?
Where do you spend the night?
Where do you live?
Do you dream ... of who?
Within your eyes my darling, there I am!
There I safely exist!
Within your soul I see the stars...
...and nothing, nothing compares...
... to you.
You are unique.
Creator´s masterpiece
...and I dream of you!

Hummmm...I beg your pardon new grandidentata... ... but this is it!

Even Beauty may have many faces. So...let it be!
Dyckia goehringii
drives me mad about...

Dyckia goehringii - II ( So exclusive it is worth to see it again.)

speechless....

...what better could be said?
Look, there is a nice pup under the leaves...