After one and a half day’s journey from Potosi
by rail through the bare sterile high salt steppes of South Bolivia and
North Chile, I finally reached the saltpetre port of Antofagasta.
Here I had entered the region of a cactus genus that had long been numbered
among my secret loves and which for that reason I kept a special eye on -
the Copiapoas. In vain did I search the completely
vegetationless coastal rocks around Antofagasta for Copiapoa marginata
which according to the literature is located here. Later, in the Herbarium
of the University of Santiago I saw it and learned of the habitat details: a
baranca or ravine 30 km from Antofagasta. I would have liked to have known
that previously.
I now flew with intermediate stops from Antofagasta
towards the south. My first touch-down and visit took in Taltal, the
type-locality of C. cinerea. Here I was at last able to
acquire a broader appreciation of the species. Already on the auto drive
from the airfield, situated 25 km away, to the port of Taltal I had seen on
the bare scree-slopes, the grey-white somewhat bulbous Copiapoas
crouched like tiny people in the twilight of the already falling night. The
whole of the next day I wandered through the broad strands of the C.
cinerea and as a result completely forgot about lunch. Almost lovingly,
I examined these solitary plants growing up to 80 cm high with their
chalk-white coats, mostly short, ebony-black spines and small yellow flowers
in the grey-felted crowns. I had always had a burning desire to have such a
plant in my collection. Now the desire was being fulfilled and I could even
collect it myself. At the same time as the flowers, there were ripe fruits,
so that I could harvest copious amounts of seed. By careful examination of
the plants I noticed again and again marked variations in body form,
clump-building, rib-number and - above all - spination.
Though I was very much on the look-out for seedling
plants, I found none and also I could not imagine how in this completely
rainless desert, seeds could germinate and seedlings could survive the first
critical year. But as I began to clear away the coarse pebbles round a group
of old plants, I found the solution to this puzzle; from deep down arose
quite thin cereoid young plantlets, that certainly required many years of
growth before they finally emerged from the shade of the stones. Then the
head broadens out and the long, often twisted neck is transformed into a
lingnified root-stock. As the only companions to the C. cinerea
plants emerged occasional groups of some 3 m high long-spined, besom-like
Eulychnias with their distinctive grey-brown spined fruits. The
strong, downward-directed central spines often reach a length of 30 cm and
are used by the local women as knitting needles. On the coastal rocks south
of the township of Taltal, I discovered another Copiapoa species
which set in crevices and had a long tap-root. It reached only about
first-size, did not clump, had strongly curved brown spines and exhibited
only a weak white-grey covering. I decided that this plant was
Copiapoa taltalensis.
I next broke my flight at Copiapoa, the town
after which the Copiapoas are named. Here, according to the details
given in the literature, C. cinerascens and megarhiza
grow. In my extensive wanderings through the mountain rocks in the near
vicinity of the town, I encountered exclusively a markedly varying species,
which, however, is patently not identical with C. cinenascens. I
later learned, in fact that the habitat of this species lies further north
from Copiapó. The Copiapoa here were accompanied solely by a very
pretty little Tephrocactus with yellow spines, thick yellow
areoles and dark red flowers. Will I live to see those beautiful flowers on
the collected pieces?
As the plane came in to land at Vallenar on the
way to La Serena, I saw indistinctly on the desert floor, groups of a
many headed spherical cactus plant. Scarcely had I heard on landing that we
would have a 15 minute stop than I was already storming across the sandy
runway towards the distant cactus clump. I was astonished to find yet again
a Copiapoa species which consisted of many heads of about first-size,
with stronger spination, but with only a weak grey coating on the epidermis.
The plant reminded me immediately of that known to me as C.
fiedleriana. I was so deeply immersed in seed harvesting and cutting
off suitable heads that I completely forgot the time and finally noticed
only as a result of the airfield siren and the violently gesticulating
people, that my aircraft wished to take off. I do not know what the airfield
personnel and aircrew thought when they saw the “gringo” who had delayed the
flight, toddle in with a bag full of cacti from the sandy wastes!
From La Serena I was due to continue my journey by
express coach to Santiago. There remained to me only a few hours
before its departure. Where now do I quickly find C. coquimbana
I thought feverishly, and scanned the cultivated land around the town. Then,
following a sudden inspiration, I joined an auto bus to the 15 km distant
Coquimbo. But right and left as far as the eye could see I found only
cultivated land, until the town of Coquimbo came in sight. There I
discovered at one point, between the fields and fruit groves, a small rocky
knoll on which some Eulychinas stood. I bade the driver halt
immediately, got out, and marched down the lane to the small hill. I was in
luck! Close to thick Opuntia and Eulychnia hedges I
came upon many, over one-hundred headed groups of C. coquimbana
almost 1 meter high. Immediately I recognised the great resemblance to the
plants found on the airfield at Vallenar. Here, near Coquimbo, the heads
were merely larger and the spination somewhat weaker.
Santiago de Chile was a large town after my own tastes;
modern, lively, with a pronounced European atmosphere, in a healthy,
temperate situation, directly at the foot of the Andean chain and its
perpetual snows.
