The last thing I
would have expected happened as I woke up, at around 6 a.m. There was a strange,
yet familiar, noise on the tent - RAIN! in Secret Valley!
(S237)
It was still raining - well, something between a light rain and heavy drizzle
really - at 7:30 when a call of nature forced me to get up. Everything looked
very different wet - amazing! I wonder when these hills and plants had last seen
rain like this.
The drizzle also dampened our enthusiasm. We packed the
wet tents and by 8:15 we were back in the Guanillos Valley (S238)
for a second attempt to find Copiapoa laui at the familiar location where
we had found it abundantly in 2001 and 2003. Again, Anne and I felt sure that we
had the right place, confirmed by the GPS reading. Oxalis gigantea was
still in flower but already coming into leaf - usually regarded as an indication
that there had been some moisture a few days earlier. After an hour of
searching, we finally had to admit that the plants had either gone, or, more
likely, had become invisible. Perhaps they had become extremely shrunk and
shrivelled after a long period of drought and were still waking up from the
drought induced dormancy. I bet that as I write this report, the plants have
swollen significantly and are either in bud or in flower. Graham Charles and
Roger Ferryman are due to visit this area with members of the CaSS(US), and it
will be interesting to hear / read what they found.
Next on the agenda was a drive through the Tigrillo Valley
and a visit (S239)
to the C. longistaminea that grow between the magnificent rocks, close to
the Pacific Ocean. These rocks - a very course granite - have been weathered,
probably blasted by sand storms and (some) water over many thousands of
years.
From here, we drove back inland, turned north and then
west again, with a quick stop to take more pictures of the seemingly endless
stand of Copiapoa columna-alba (S240)
and back to the coast at Caleta La Madera (S241).
It is strange how in the Tigrillo and La Madera Valleys, C. columna-alba
are the dominant plants inland, with C. longistaminea as the dominant
plant 'on the beach'. Yet in the Guanillos Valley, C. longistaminea and
C. grandiflora are the visually dominant Copiapao and further
inland, at Secret Valley, C. columna-alba and C. longistaminea
grow side by side. From time to time, both have been regarded as belonging to
the Cinerea complex in the genus Copiapoa - with a fibrous root
system rather than a thick tap root and (under favourable growing conditions)
with a white waxed epidermis. I understand that it is unusual for closely
related species to grow together without the occurrence of intermediate forms -
natural hybrids. I do not recall having seen any or reading reports from others
on this point - providing professional taxonomists with a bit of a head ache.
So far, we were covering the same territory as in 2003,
but I was keen to extend the search farther north. Again we drove inland and
north, again we met the endless stands of C. columna-alba, (S242),
like pavements full of shoppers heading north. Again we turned west (S243),
through a valley (Quebrada de Leoncito) still surrounded by C. columna-alba
that thinned out as we finally reached the Ocean, through a narrow gorge. At the
gorge (S244
& S245)
we again found forms of C. longistaminea, but each time that this plant
appears along the coast, there seems to be a distinct local form for each
Quebrada. Knize had used the name (nomen nudum) Copiapoa tigrillensis for
the plants at the mouth of the Quebrada Tigrillo. In 'Copiapoa in their
environment', Attila Kapitany and Rudolf Schulz mention Copiapoa sp. 'Cifuncho',
that we visited in 2003 and that I believe to be the most northern form of this
species. We'd return to it again later on in the trip (11
October).
The weather had not really cleared up and we decided to
head for the Cabaņas at Caleta Hueso, our home in 2001 and 2003, just north of
Taltal - happy that I had another Quebrada form of C. longistaminea to
add to my list. So how many more should I schedule for future trips? Well, the
topographical maps indicate:
as the only named features before reaching Cifuncho. And with
that thought in mind, I nodded off.
