CactiGuide.com

Took a short trip 14 km north of my house to a rather non-descript dirt road in a rather dry section of dry forest, sometimes called seasonally dry forest. It has one of my favorite cactus sites that I havent been to for several years. While it doersnt have much in the way of grand photogenic cacti, it does have an amazing number of different species. In one 200 yard section of this road there are at least 8 species. Most I found today, all common dry area species with a bonus that I found a rather scraggly colony of Selecicereus/strophocatus testudo. I was quite surprised to find it here as it is at its best up in the mountains. It goes to show that it pays to revisit your cactus sites.

Here you have Opuntia lutea and decumbens, Epiphyllum hookeri, Stenocereus/Mashallocereus eighlamii, Acanthocereus tetragonus, Acanthocereus/Peniosereus hirschianus, 3 peperomias, some bromeliads, a Philodedron sp.,and something with big leaves that looks like an Anthurium. On the way out an Agave species, probably a Furcraea but it looks different than the F. cabuya I am used to in the mountains.

Thanks for sharing ! The terrain looks pretty dense and rugged off road. Was the Yucca HUGE? or just the camera angle make it look so big?

The dead one had a flower stalk about 6M tall. The live one was about 3 M tall and wide.
The good thing about the dry season is that you can see the cactus. Come back in a couple months and they will all be covered with seasonal growth.
I have been to this site at least 6 times over a 13 year period and this is the first time I noticed the S testudo.

This week I returned to a site near this one. It had pretty much the same species. Notice the Opuntia lutea. The new spines are yellow which probably earned it the name "lutea". They get darker as they mature. The acacia trees shows its thorns which are hollow and contain ants which defend the tree if disturbed.* The Jatropha podagrica plants were small and water stressed. If they had not been in flower I probably would have missed them. I have grown these out in the past and they make a nice caudiciform potted plant. In the far distance were some nice specimens of Pilosocereus leucocephalus with plenty of white "hair".

* kew.org/read-and-watch/ants-and-plants-a-very-natural-love-story
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Interesting. Where is it?

In northern Nicaragua between Esteli and Condega. Much of the west coast from Mexico through northern Costa Rica is seasonally dry forest.

leland wrote: ↑Sun Jan 08, 2023 1:12 pm In northern Nicaragua between Esteli and Condega. Much of the west coast from Mexico through northern Costa Rica is seasonally dry forest.

Cool, thank you