We have
arrived at Taltal a few days too early, so decide to enter the
holy-of-holies to copiapoafans: The Quebrada San Ramon, on our own. (S054)
Travelling north from Taltal on the coast road - Ruta 1 - we first passed
a mining operation, immediately followed by a barrier to the entrance of
what appeared to be a quarry.
This
was the entrance to the Quebrada, or rather the mouth of the canyon, as of
course it was water that formed this and other canyons, as it forced its
way from the high mountains of the Cordillera de la Costa down to the
Pacific Ocean. Looking at the dry land scape today, it is difficult to
imagine the torrents that must have forced their way through the sometimes
quite narrow gorge.
The
feature that impressed me most about the first Copiapoa I
encountered here is that it was badly infested by what seemed to be
scale. The plant was a C. cinerea form with horn-coloured mainly
single spines on each areole.
Before
long the more familiar black spined, 'typical' C. cinerea form
appears, although completely spineless forms were also found. All the
plants photographed grow on ledges some 2 m (6 ft) above the valley
floor. It seems that fairly recent (??? years) floods have cleared the
floor of the valley where only shrubs and annuals survive. At times there
are still damp patches with marsh grass growing around it, but thick
crusts of salt, left as water evaporated must create a micro environment
where few plants can survive.
Later,
the white spined form: C. albispina joins in - clumps of these
different spined forms grow happily side by side.
Not
only do we find specimens with the typical single spine per areole,
but also with more numerous spines. It seems only a small step from C.
albispina to the finer spined C. krainziana.
Some of
the C. cinerea have distinct yellow-orange apical felt and
spination - in my mind, 'the Haseltoniana factor' in what appears
to be a hybrid swarm, trapped in the canyon, of the more distinct forms of
members of the Cinerea complex that can be found outside the
Quebrada. In this great big melting pot, plants with a combination of
various of these features can be found, including plants of C.
krainziana with the yellow-spined Haseltonia factor at the
apex.
Another
group of plants were probably 'young' plants of C. tenebrosa -
but what age is 'young' when plants photographed seven years ago show
no sign of growth, even though this seven-year period includes an El Ninjo
rain-event. How old are these 15 cm (6 inch) diameter heads? And what
age the 1.5 m (5 ft) long stems?
We
returned to the cabañas, tired, but happy to find that the first of the
other parties had arrived: Benjy Oliver, his sister Natasha and her
boyfriend Mark. Benjy was their Copiapoamad representative, but as he
does not have a driving licence, he had persuaded the others to be his
chauffeur. To avoid boredom, they had soon picked up the art of seed
collecting and, during the next few days, impressed us all with their
newly acquired skills.
Later
that afternoon Rudolf Schulz, Gustavo Valdes, Attila Kapitany and his wife
Michelle arrived, so we returned to Club Taltal for a meal and to discuss
plans for the following day: a trip to the Quebrada San Ramon !!!
