Weingartia & Sulcorebutia
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WfflM * W% VOLUME 9 NUMBER 32 r COPIAPOA GRANDIFLORA Collect ion - Les Cedres CACTUS FRANCE 20.84:65 COPIAPOA GRANDIFLORA Photo & Collection - I. le Page COPIAPOA GRANDIFLORA FLOWERS F rom E.W, Bentley It must have been 1965 when I started to collect cacti actively and it took me about 15 months to acquire about forty Neoporterias and about twenty Copiapoas. These were all young plants and at that time I had never even seen a plant of either of these genera in flower anywhere. I did have a few duplicates, but some of those with similar labels appeared to me to be quite different species, and others with different labels seemed to be very similar looking plants. Quite a few plants were purchased as grafts but I aim to get them on to their own roots fairly promptly. In 1967 I began to acquire the odd imported plant and I also had a visit to Holland that year. The exciting part of the trip was the visit to Wouters (it took me an hour to find his place — I got to the nursery just across the road and I did not find anything of interest to me there and nearly gave up for the day). We spent some time looking at his collection — did I know Copiapoa this? or Copiapoa that? Just a minute, this is what it looks like in flower! I came away with a number of grafted plants — all excellent stuff. There were by now only about 18 or so described Copiapoa species that I did not have and I came to the conclusion that there was so much confusion over the species names that my best policy was to collect and grow the plants until I had sufficient material of reasonable age. Certainly the plants grew well — indeed they might even be described as positively exploding! Having obtained the loan of Volumes III and VI of Backeberg's Die Cactaceae, I set about translating the descriptions of all the Copiapoas. From this I found that several of my plants either matched Backeberg's description or appeared to be identical with his illustration of a species, but carried a different label. I even began to find one or two of the named plants which I had obtained from Wouters differed from the official description or from imported plants. I took a look at seed under the microscope from half a dozen different species of Copiapoa and found them to be all "much of a muchness". They are all the same shape, all somewhat laterally flattened, all have a keel that does not run the whole height of the seed, all possess the same shape of hilum in a similar plane. The micropyle seems to be at the end of the hilum and sometimesiias a rim round it and sometimes it is not well defined. The surface of the testa is tuberculated. They differ one from another slightly in that the tubercles or humps are more or less prominent, the keel varies in its acuteness, and so on. But I would not like to have to distinguish any one of these species from any other on the basis of the seeds alone. Early in 1970 I was able to pay a visit to the Isle of Wight to see a consignment of plants that Sargant had just received from Chile. I must say that seeing all those imported plants definitely helped forward my appreciation of this genus. I purchased one of this, and one of that, and when I had spent rather more than I had intended to, I called it a day. One of those plants was a shrivelled looking C. olivarna from "North of Paposo". This name was a new one to me. A couple of months later I went up to see the plants Hallett had for sale in Anglesey and was quite pleased with my purchases from there, too. After that visit I finally got down to a distribution map of Copiapoa species which Harry Middleditch had been egging me on to do and quickly found it of inestimable value. Some species which I had felt were similar, proved to come from places quite close to each other. During the summer, this plant of C. olivarna plumped up a bit and started to resembly a "dumetorum" which had arrived from Uhlig at about the same time, and during the summer I obtained two further collected plants under this name. I also had to acquire an extension to nearly double the size of my greenhouse as every available inch of space where a pot could stand was occupied, including the floor. When I had the full 25ft. length available I picked up pots from the floor etc., and spaced everything out and the whole greenhouse was full again. But now I could see everything easily, I could put like with like, which produced surprising food for thought. By this time quite a number of my Copiapoas were now flowering and at the end of 1970 my C. olivarna put out its first flower. The bud was quite red — as usual with many Copiapoas — but when the flower is open it is pale yellow and rather large — some 4.5 cm in diameter. The following year all three plants of C. olivarna were in flower in April and the flowers were so large that I put a ruler across and two of them measured exactly 50mm diameter. My wife measured another olivarna flower while I was at work and made the same diameter. I seem to remember measuring a montana flower about that time, that was even bigger! So Copiapoas can have big flowers. By 1973 these three plants of C. olivarna had grown a little more and were in flower from early May throughout the summer. These plants have a collosal flower for a Copiapoa, getting on for 70mm in diameter. I had still seen nothing in print about these plants, which I had now come to regard as indistinguishable from plants from two different sources that I had labelled "grandiflora". These two plants of C. grandiflora had not yet produced any flowers. Both my C. grandifloras were acquired in 1967. One of them came from Bulthuis, a small grafted plant, one solitary head which measured only V/>" across the spines. This was degrafted in April 1971 and quickly established itself on its own roots. After a couple of year's growth it had produced several offsets and occupied a 5 " pot. Since 51 then I have removed a number of the offsets and rooted them up. The other plant was bought from Uplands nursery under the name of C. cupreata; I believe that it was from the George collection (from near Ron Ginns) who grew it from Winter's seed, and Uplands purchased that complete collection. When I bought this plant it was 3 " in diameter and VA" high, on its own roots, with one offset. By the September of that year it had three or four offsets. I stripped off all the offsets in 1968 but by August 1971 it was back to 8 offsets again and occupying a 6" pot. Despite the label, I was pretty certain from the appearance of this plant that it was a C. grandiflora. The evidence for these two plants really being C. grandiflora was strengthened when the two of them both flowered in May 1974 and both had large flowers for Copiapoas. The flower on the offset from the original Uplands plant opened out to 60mm diameter and the other — the ex-Bulthuis plant — made 80mm across. Unfortunately my film ran out in the camera and I bought another one only just in time to catch the flower before it expired. Now we have moved down to Devon I am convinced that the air is cleaner than on the outskirts of London and it seems to suit my plants; but I shall probably have to shade in summer to avoid scorching the Copiapoas. Both the plants of Copiapoa grandiflora have responded by flowering again this year. I see Ritter, in his description of C. grandiflora, says that it comes from Esmeralda. Whereabouts is this place? I cannot find it on my maps on Chile. Comments on C. grandiflora .... from H. Middleditch Both these plants of C. grandiflora were on the speaker's table at our 1975 Brooksby weekend. The ex-Bulthuis plant hadoa purplish tinge to the green epidermis, perhaps reddish-purple in parts; the ribs were quite narrow at the peak and markedly depressed in between the areoles. The other plant (presumably ex-Winter's seed) had a fainter reddish-brown tinge to the green epidermis, again with the ribs coming to a narrow peak, but less depressed between areoles and with a faint suggestion of a chin above the areole. Alongside these two plants was a plant with two labels - C. krainziana var. scopulina and C. grandiflora. The body of this plant had a very rich purple colour indeed. The port or fishing hamlet of Esmeralda appears on my 1:1,000,000 map of Chile roughly half way between Chanaral and Taltal. ,. from R. Moreton The two-labelled plant which I brought along to Brooksby was bought as a seedling from Roanoke many years ago now. .... from E.W. Bentley Yes, I have now managed to locate Esmeralda, a tiny port of that name which lies a few miles south of Cifunchos. .. from I. Le Page. (C.l.) I am quite familiar with a plant of C. grandiflora which is not in my own collection, which was originally obtained from the Dutch nursery of Edelman.