High in this lonesome
world, amidst rocks and gravel, we were to spend another
night in the car. It was a lot easier this time. The next day we
found Trichocereus
chilensis var. eburneus, Tr. serenanus, Pyrrhocactus vallenarensis,
P. dimorphus, Neoporteria clavata and its variety procera,
N. microsperma and its variety serenana.
Later, driving north, we
found the habitat of Neoporteria wagenknechtii with its
beautiful deep red coloured flowers. It is remarkable that here
too, these relatively small globular cacti unexpectedly appear
growing in cracks in the rocks, high up, in inaccessible places
and apparently in bone dry conditions. It's only due to Ritter's
great local knowledge that we were able to find these most
interesting small species.
Two heads of Copiapoa coquimbana
var. chorosensis Ritter,
and a solitary speciman of Pyrrhocactus simulans, growing
at 400 m altitude.
Photo Buining
I had imagined that these
coastal areas would be dry beach-like areas with the Andes far in
the background to the east. But these Andean foothills come close
to, and sometimes right up to, the Ocean shore. The farther north
we drove, the drier the scenery became and so we found ourselves
right in the middle of the famous and infamous Atacama Desert.
The tarmaced Pan Americana would first follow the shore, then turn
inland, only to turn back to the shore again, up and down hills in
the process. Stopping at a number of passes, we found interesting
cactus species. Than on a steep hillside or in a completely dried
out gully or along small streams where, after a long search, we
would find often tiny cacti. We found Trichocereus spinibarbis,
Copiapoa coquimbana var. chorosensis and Pyrrhocactus
simulans. The last two were hardly distinguishable from each
other when not in flower. We had to search a long time before we
had found the Pyrrhocactus growing right alongside a group
of Copiapoa. By exposing the large taproots, is appeared
that Pyrrhocactus had a yellow coloured root, while the
Copiapoa had a greyish root. Finding
Pyrrhocactus trapichensis was also quite a challenge. The
small plants with huge taproot was totally hidden between the
rocks or was covered in grit and dust.
