Essex SucculentReview Volume 54 Number 1 March 2017 In this issue Day trips for Conophytums by Chris Rodgerson Fog by Paul Klaassen Some interesting Euphorbias by Bob Potter Editorial Zone 15 Events March–July 2017 We didn’t actually have an editorial Sunday 19 March 12noon–5.00pm in the last issue, I wonder if Zone 15 Mini-convention anybody missed it. I suspect Speakers Kathy and Keith Flanagan, Alice Vanden Bon probably not. All tickets for this event have been sold. We have revamped the Essex Saturday and Sunday 22 and 23 April 10.00am–4.00pm Succulent Review website Display of plants, plant sales and information stand for the Essex Plant considerably, and it is now mobile Heritage, Spring Fair at RHS Hyde Hall. friendly. This is achieved with an Saturday and Sunday 20 and 21 May 10.00am–4.00pm incredibly clever piece of software Plant display in conjunction with the Haworthia Society at RHS Hyde Hall. which will sense what device you Saturday 28 May 12noon–4.00pm are looking at the site on and resize Lea Valley Branch Annual Show: it to give the best possible viewing Capel Manor College, Bullsmoor Lane, Enfield EN1 4RQ experience. I could not possibly The plants remain on display over the May Bank Holiday weekend and the have done this myself – and I would like to thank my partner, show includes sales of cacti, succulents and garden plants. Paul, for all the had work he put Saturday 3 June 11.00am–4.00pm into this. Unfortunately it is not Havering Branch Annual Show possible to resize the pdfs. 1st Floor, YMCA, Rush Green Road, RM7 0PH Having completed the first ESR Saturday 10 June 11.00am–4.00pm issue of the year I am already Southend-on-Sea Branch Show: planning ahead for the remainder of United Reformed Church Hall, Kings Road, Leigh-on-Sea SS0 8PP the year. Like every editor, Saturday 8 July 10.30am–4.00pm everywhere, I always need more Waltham Forest Branch Show: material. One of my mottos is Chingford Horticultural Hall, Larkshall Road, Chingford E4 6PE ‘Written by growers for other Plant sales from 9.00am growers’ and I am sure that there is Saturday 15 July 12noon–4.00pm a wealth of untapped talent out Zone 15 Annual Show there. If you have a suggestion for United Reformed Church Hall, Kings Road, Leigh-on-Sea SS0 8PP an article please let me know. It doesn’t have to be a long item, as I can always use shorter items or The 12th Spalding Cactus Mart fillers. will be held on I’ll hope to hear from you Saturday 22nd April 2017 10.00am–3.00pm Holbeach Community Centre, Fishpond Lane, Essex Holbeach, Lincs P12 7DE SucculentReview At least 14 sellers in attendance The Essex Succulent Review is Ample free parking and free admission to the Mart published quarterly in March, Refreshments available all day June, September and December. For further details please see the It is available on-line free of Spalding Branch website charge. Just send an email to [email protected] to receive a pdf of each issue when it is available. South-East Cactus Mart Saturday 29 April 2017 Past issues are archived at 10.00am to 3.00pm www.essexsucculentreview.org.uk Following the success of last year’s Mart this will be repeated Editor Sheila Cude at the same venue Address 25 Macleod Road Swalecliffe Community Centre, 19 St John's Road, London N21 1SW Whitstable, CT5 2QU Phone 020 8340 1928 Refreshments available all day Adults £1 Children free Email For more information and directions contact [email protected] Dave J Appleton, Herne Bay Branch Secretary 2 by Paul Klaassen I had been a great fan of the book, intrigued to find that the coastal area, Above: Eulychnia ‘Copiapoa in their environment’ by Rudolf where Copiapoa, Eriosyce sensu lato and taltalensis, covered in Schulz and Attila Kapitany (1996) and so Eulychnia, to name but a few, grow in the lichen and algae, on top of the coastal was very happy to be invited to make up a Atacama Desert, in the southern hills above Paposo British car party for a trip to the Chilean hemisphere is almost a mirror of the Pacific Atacama Desert in 2001 to join Rudolf and Ocean area along the Baja California coast Attila for a further study of the plants. We in the northern hemisphere. Again, we ran experienced the famous camanchaca, into dense fog. cloud banks that occur along the Chilean Coincidence? coast. We found many cactus and succulent locations and recorded their GPS A search on the internet for ‘camanchaca’ coordinates. led me to ‘fog-deserts’, which confirmed that the Atacama Desert and parts of Baja In 2008 I made two trips in quick California, in particular the Vizcaino Desert, succession to Baja California, again are fog-deserts and that the third such recording the coordinates where we found desert is the Namib Desert in South Africa, cacti and other succulents in habitat and particularly the Skeleton Coast, where the the locations where we photographed the plants. The water droplets of the fog collect on the spines of Eulychnia taltalensis and Back home in the on lichen and guide them to the soil UK, I would plot where roots of the cacti and other these locations on lomas vegetation can benefit from the Google Earth, a only source of water. virtual globe, map Other cacti found here: and geographical Copiapoa humilis, information program the high-altitude form of that can be Copiapoa cinerea subsp. haseltoniana, downloaded free of Eriosyce paucicostata, and charge for Windows, E. taltalensis. OS X, Linux Succulents include a computers and Calandrinia sp., Android 8.0.0 and Euphorbia lactiflua, iOS mobile Nolana sp. and a telephones. I was Viola sp. 3 Fog continued frequent thick the wind is reversed. I remember at the coastal fog Botija Valley setting up our tents (during caused many daylight) with the opening facing inland. By shipwrecks that the time we turned in, the wind direction gave the area its had turned and had filled the tent with name. smoke from the bonfire. I learned that the The Humboldt Current comes from the key requirements South Pole and passes along the South were a hot body American Pacific coast, past the Atacama of arid land Desert where it is said there are areas along a cold where it has ‘never’ rained. body of water. As the name implies, the Vizcaino Desert is During the hot also an extremely dry place, a desert being day, air over land defined as an area receiving less than warms up more 25cm (10") of precipitation per year. The quickly than that cold body of water in this case is the Graph showing zonal above the sea surface. As the hot air rises, California Current in the Pacific Ocean. By mean precipitation it pulls cooler air from the sea and so sets comparison, annual precipitation averages i.e. precipitation up a light sea breeze. Dewpoint is the point for the UK are 885 millimetres (33.7"). So, against latitude where temperature, relative humidity and although we get plenty of fog in the UK, we barometric pressure conspire for water to are far from being a desert. condense and form fog or mist. The difference between ‘fog’ and ‘mist’ The fog in the Namib Desert comes from depends on a number of definitions but in the Benguela Current in the Atlantic Ocean. simple terms it centres on the size of the These three currents, together with the particles and the distance over which Somali Current and the Canary Current, are objects can be seen. affiliated with ‘upwelling zones’. After sunset the land cools down more I found a neat graph showing that the two quickly than water so that the direction of poles are the driest places. In joint second Crossing the Tropic of Cancer on the road between Zaragosa and Victoria in Mexico with signs showing how the exact location of the tropic moves each year. Photo: Roberto González licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International 4 Fog continued place are the Tropics of Cancer and to Chile and Baja California and, although I Capricorn at a latitude of 23°26'13.5" north had pictures of stops at the monuments and south of the equator respectively, that mark the position of the tropic's which corresponds to the axial tilt of the latitude, imagine my surprise to find that planet. our GPS seemed to be out by a few seconds. This is due to a ‘wobble’ that It just so happens that these tropics cross planet Earth experiences as it spins around the Atacama Desert and the Baja its axis, so that the exact position of the Peninsula. One year, in the bar of the tropics can vary by a few metres from year annual ELK cactus and succulent plant to year. event in Blankenberge, Belgium, I was discussing this with friends and suggested I travelled to the point where the Tropic of that, as we had already visited the Capricorn crosses the coast in Namibia Atacama Desert and Baja California in and retrieved images from my archives of pursuit of cacti, we should really visit the the coast in Chile and Baja California Namib Desert to complete the trio of fog where the tropics crossed. I concluded deserts. that, although the science suggests a specific spot to observe these conditions, After some prompting and teasing at they can be experienced in a zone of some subsequent ELKs, in 2011 I finally had my 100km or more around this point.