We
forced ourselves away from the air-conditioned cabañas and went looking
for Copiapoa on the way to Cifuncho. Miguel Finger, the owner of
the cabañas, gave us directions to a location (S052)
where a track off the main road leads towards some hills.
To the
left (north west) of the road, the soil is light coloured while to the
right (south east), the colour is much darker. Two species of Copiapoa
grew here: solitary C. cinerea ssp. columna-alba on the sandy soil,
while on the darker soil clumps of C. rupestris subsp. desertorum
were found.
A few
C. desertorum found a home 'on the wrong side of the track' but
none of the C. columna-alba seemed to have strayed. We found no
plants that could be regarded as hybrids between the two. I found this
phenomenon all the more remarkable as there are no reports of different
species of Copiapoa preferring specific soil types in cultivation.
(But see the 2003 report, where, on 10 June and
16 June, we learned not to draw conclusions too
quickly!)
A
similar soil preference exists in the Quebrada Botija, where the species
concerned are C. solaris and C. atacamensis. Or was this
observation also premature?
We
returned to the main track and drove on until we reached the Pacific Ocean
at the bay of Cifuncho. The small settlement nestled at the foot of a
hill, to the left (south) looked absolutely charming, but as we had come
to look at cacti, we stopped (S053)
to explore the foot of the low hills along the track to the village. There
were some charming little succulents (Echeveria sp.?) that looked a
bit lost in the middle of nowhere, a tiny yellow flowered plant with
fleshy leaves and a Nolana sp. in flower, as well as Copiapoa
rupestris and Eriosyce rodentiophila.
That
evening we eat in 'Club Taltal', where the waiter tells us that on the
whole, the climate has not changed here during the last 100 years or so,
but that during the last five years (1996-2001, taking in the 1997 El
Ninjo event), it had become colder and wetter. If we were in the middle of
a 'wet spell', should we not be expecting to see more seedlings of plants
in the Cinerea complex?
During
our stay in Taltal (21 - 29 May 2001) the weather was rather overcast
compared to the much brighter conditions that we found on our trips north
and south of the town.
