Ricardo suggested that
we'd join him and members of the Chilean Cactus Club for the day and so we met
up at the Copec fuel station on Ruta 5 at around 8 a.m.. Our first goal
was a drive and walk up the Quebrada El Leon (S123), where we found
Copiapoa humilis, C. marginata and what we tentatively noted as C.
hypogaea (which would make it the most southern occurrence by quite a
distance and therefore unlikely). The 'other cacti' included Eriosyce
(Neoporteria) taltalensis and Echinopsis (Trichocereus) deserticola.
Next we were to meet the
owner of the hotel where Ingrid & Ricardo had been staying, who would guide us
to another location which, as far as we are aware, had not been explored for
cacti before (S124) at La Hormiga. Angie christened this stop
'Horror Hill' as the track was probably the most demanding on car, driver and
passengers of anything we had met to date. Many a 'Ouch' and 'whoops-a-daisy'
was heard as the convoy of 5 cars lunged up the hillside track. There had been
the usual low cloud cover as we woke, but this tended to lift during the day.
Not today - it even started to spit with drizzle as we were taking our
pictures. The Copiapoa and Eriosyce sp. we found (small
plants) were dully photographed. As the Copiapoa met the 'squishy' criteria,
coined by Rudolf in 2001 for soft bodied plants in the Humilis complex, this
was the name noted. Discussions later on left me a little confused with C.
humilis, C. echinata and C. totoralensis as possible candidates for
the identity parade.
The Eriosyce
(Neoporteria) sp. was also 'different' to anything we'd seen before with
probably more than one taxon represented. The name E. occulta was
suggested and that name deserves a bit more study of the available literature
in weeks to come.. Plant ID can be quite a tricky business. When it comes to
cacti, we're so used to buying labelled plants and often blindly trust the
accuracy of the name on the label. Or we have built up an image of what a
particular species should like from a limited number of pictures in a book.
This ill prepares us for the variability that can occur in nature. Some
taxa are quite uniform in appearance, while others can confuse the most
experienced copiapoaphile. The next aid to identification is to check through
literature for suggestions of what has been reported from a particular
location before, but this relies on the expertise of the author, who may have
copied errors that have crept into earlier works and of the person who has
entered that name on their field list and so it too has to be used with
caution. Next, we used the process of elimination and ultimately some long
discussions over several alcoholic beverages help to put the world to rights.
It was at this point
that our car, a Kia Sportage, decided to play dead. It had on some occasions
been a bit tricky to start, but this time it was as dead as a dodo. We had
been the last car to reach the 'car park' - the end of the trail at the top of
a hill where we just managed to squeeze the car in between Eulychnia
and Trichocereus. The last 20 meters had been steep with large holes
and boulders making the end of the road a welcome sight. We believed
that we would be able to bump-start the car, but none of us dared to do this
in reverse down this horrible track. So with the unified strength of the
assembled cactophiles, the car was pushed from (and over) Eulychnia to
Trichocereus for what seemed like a 12 point turn on a handkerchief.
Eventually it was pointing down hill and Cliff
volunteered to be the chauffeur for the bump start. With a sigh of relief from
the spectators the car fired up and we could start the descend. From than on
it was important to look for a place to park the car with a good downward
slope to get it going again. We intended to ring the car rental people or to
seek advice at a local garage, but when you spend most of the day in the
field, away from garages, this proved not the easiest of things to accomplish.
We agreed to seek help in Taltal where we'd be spending six nights. By then,
Cliff's careful observations had found the car battery bone dry due to two
grommets, fitted to avoid spillage of battery acid in transit between the
factory and the supplier, still being in place, despite the instructions (in
English) on the battery to remove them after installation of the battery. As a
result, the battery had been unable to breath, causing it to boil. The problem
was remedied easily with the aid of a few litres of distilled water supplied
by the owner of the cabañas in Taltal and the
removal of the grommets.
Anyway, with the car
still ill, our two car parties decided to spend the afternoon on the Morro
Copiapó (S125), opposite the hotel at Bahia Inglesa. This is an important
location for Copiapoaphiles, as it is the location of the neotype of
Copiapoa marginata, the plant that was chosen as the type species of the
genus when it was created by Britton & Rose. For some 60 years, the true
identity of C. marginata had been the source of some argument and
discussion until Ritter designated the plants from Morro Copiapó as the
neotype.
It is also the neotype
locality for Eriosyce odieri according to Kattermann. The two taxa were
dully found and photographed as the sun was disappearing behind the Morro,
casting a harsh shadow over the plants.
And so it was once again
time to get back to the hotel bar and for Angie to down-load the day's images
from her, Cliff's and my digital cameras to her laptop, which by the end of
the trip had about 6,000 images stored.
