Galapagos islands, New Photos ...

[teo]

Aren't the tree-like opuntias Opuntia galapageia? That would be logical anyways.

[John C]

Wow! What a neat place! That must have been quite a trip. Those opuntias are particularly impressive!

Beautiful reptiles as well! Thank you for sharing your photos!

[DaveW]

As with Darwin's finches I believe the Opuntia's on each island used to have their own specific names since they too have developed in isolation from each other, but I believe they are now often lumped as subspecies. As the following link states there was a good article on these in one of the old CSSA Journals:-

Dawson, E.Y. 1965. Further Studies of Opuntia in the Galapagos Archipelago. Cactus and Succulent Journal 37(5) : 135-1 9.- 36

http://datazone.darwinfoundation.org/me ... untias.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://opuntiads.com/oblog/2012/opuntia ... os-islands" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.galapagosonline.com/nathisto ... actus.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Maid Spikeion]

Gosh, thank you so much for all the kind comments and information:) DaveW, the links are great!... on your second link, I think I found the name of the unknown opuntia I posted from north seymour. It said that it is only found on seymour (echios var zacana). When I flew into the Galapagos the quarantine was policed, but wasn't as tight on the way out. There are lots of tourist souvenirs made from fiber, wood and seeds in Santa Cruz which tourists take back to the mainland. I didn't know that the lava cacti were hard to grow from seed and I can now see why they are not grown out of the Galapagos... I'm sure quarantine would draw the line at a severed cacti in the handbag:)

[charlpic]

Thanks for sharing this with us! Unbelievable pictures.

[ali]

Wow!!!!!
Thanks for the post.