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chile con spiky:) now with penguin pic!:)

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 11:30 am
by Maid Spikeion
I took some photos of cacti in Chile and thought someone might like to see some wild plants... I'm sorry I don't know what any of them are. I took them all on the main road from Santiago to punta choros and on isla damas off the Chilean coast. The rocks with the red-flowering cacti atop had humboldt penguins nesting underneath:)

Re: chile con spiky:)

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 4:58 pm
by peterb
Wow again! I am loving these habitat photos! I want to know what these plants are. I think the extremely spiky cacti are Eulychnia, but I really know next to nothing about South American cacti. The forum has several SA cacti experts so I'm sure we will get IDs. I for one can never see enough of these kind of habitat photos, so I hope you are not holding back on posting! :-)

peterb

PS- I want to see penguin photos also.

Re: chile con spiky:)

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:16 pm
by Jens
Great pictures indeed, thanks for posting.
The red `flowers´ on the larger cacti on the Isla Damas (No.6) are a kind of cactus prasite called Tristerix aphyllus which ist sprouting out from the inside of the host cactus .

http://www.parasiticplants.siu.edu/Lora ... erix3.JPEG" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: chile con spiky:)

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 5:32 pm
by DaveW
The columnar plants are Eulychnias's the globular clumps Copiapoa's. The straggly cereoide with the red tufts probably a Trichocereus Those red tufts are not it's flowers but a parasite related to mistletoe:-

http://www.parasiticplants.siu.edu/Lora ... yllus.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: chile con spiky:)

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 8:34 pm
by iann
That's brave to get in there!

I think the Copiapoa mound might be C. marginata. Lots of Copiapoas round there and the big mounds all blur together in my mind ...

Re: chile con spiky:)

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2013 10:40 pm
by daiv
iann wrote:That's brave to get in there!
Ha! Yes, that is what I was thinking - then I see all that room around the back and think entry into the spine forest was for the sake of the picture. :lol: :P

Re: chile con spiky:)

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2013 10:10 am
by Maid Spikeion
Hahaha... yes, it was for the sake of the photo... but did have to walk into the shot from the front... the spiky way:):) Here is a pic of the burrow under the cacti rock and also the penguin. I was AMAZED to read that the red flowers were not cacti flowers at all! Pretty parasites...

Re: chile con spiky:) now with penguin pic!:)

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2013 12:15 pm
by Onzuka
To my eye, these are Eulychnia saint-pieana. They always look as though they are struggling to survive in habit, and maybe they are. In captivity, they are an incredibly beautiful and rare plant. If you like spines and wool, these are for you. I was given some habitat seeds a few years ago, they germinated well and have not been difficult to grow. I've only kept one of them, I wish I had kept more, although these are not the sort of cacti that I now grow.

Isn't it true that, along with the Copiapoas, they can grow in places where it never rains? They can get all the moisture that they need from droplets of sea fog collecting on the spines and dropping onto the soil.

Steve

Re: chile con spiky:) now with penguin pic!:)

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2013 2:22 pm
by daiv
Steve,
Yes, Eulychnia is well known for surviving off the fog. However, I understand that the conditions along the west coast of South America are such that the fog there is extremely dense and reliable. I'm not sure what the total moisture amounts to in actual measurements, that would be interesting to know. As in the equivalent of 10 inches of rain annually or something like that. DaveW will probably find a good link to that info soon.

Re: chile con spiky:) now with penguin pic!:)

Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2013 9:13 pm
by peterb
Amazing pic of a very cool penguin! Thank you!

petern

Re: chile con spiky:) now with penguin pic!:)

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 9:53 am
by DaveW
Are thease the ones you want Daiv?

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0477(1988" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)069%3C0138%3AANWRTC%3E2.0.CO%3B2

http://www.dgf.uchile.cl/rene/PUBS/fray_jorge_fog.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.drunkongreen.com/2009/11/the ... h-america/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

On the rare occasions when you do get rains or snow in the Atacama the "Flowering Desert" occurs when all the annual seeds and bulbs that have lain dormant for years quickly flower and seed in order to survive until it's next occurance. Roger Ferryman picture:-
Flowering Desert.jpg
Flowering Desert.jpg (95.92 KiB) Viewed 2664 times

Re: chile con spiky:) now with penguin pic!:)

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 1:20 pm
by Harriet
Thanks for posting these pictures. I always enjoy trips to cactus and bird places!

Re: chile con spiky:) now with penguin pic!:)

Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2013 2:03 pm
by Tony
Great pictures, thanks for posting them. :)

Re: chile con spiky:) now with penguin pic!:)

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 5:21 am
by tumamoc
I don't usually think of cacti and penguins together. Thanks for the different perspective.

Re: chile con spiky:) now with penguin pic!:)

Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 11:52 am
by DaveW
My first link above pasted in OK, but when submitted does not work. Therefore "Google":-

"A Neglected Water Resource The Camanchaca Of South America".