Contents of the Summer 2008 Northants News

             A Peruvian Mystery                      Roland Tebbenham        

My son Andrew is travelling in South America with two friends. During a speedboat trip to see wildlife on the Ballestas Islands, part of a Peruvian National Reserve which includes the Paracas Peninsula; he took a photograph. The photo was of a geoglyph, which is a sculpture formed in hard sand on a slope above the coast. It resembles a candelabra, or maybe a cactus; but what was it, who made it and why?

I decided to research it and recalled our International Convention at Loughborough University in August-2002. Following dinner on the second day we were treated to vivid illustrations during a fascinating lecture by Dr Carlos Ostolaza, the President of the Peruvian Cactus Society. His subject was ‘Cacti and the Ancient Peruvians’, in which he described the cactus-related food, tools, dyes and narcotics used by Peruvian people between BC500 and AD1532. These included the Paracas, Huan, Nazca, Moche and Inca peoples. Their artefacts and images reflected the importance of cacti, both practically and culturally. Opuntia pads and fruits provided food, cactus spines were used as fish hooks, they extracted dyes from the cochineal insect, and employed narcotics from certain Echinopsis (Trichocereus) species in their medicine and rituals.

Andrew’s picture of El Candalabro in Peru. Graham Charles’ image of Browningia candelaris from the website www.columnar-cacti.org

I sent Dr Ostolaza an email enquiring for information from his researches. He kindly replied quickly and was pleased that I had recalled his lecture at our convention six years earlier.

“Well, I would like to say that this figure called ‘El Candelabro’ that can be seen from the sea at Paracas Bay, south of Lima was done by the Paracas Culture (400BC-200AD), dwellers of this area and represents Browningia candelaris. I must add that this cactus species has not yet been studied biochemically in search of alkaloids and the discovery of them could give us a good reason for its depiction.

But the archaeologists said this figure (128m high and 74m wide) is not even part of the Nazca Culture (200AD-600AD) and whose renowned ‘Nazca lines’ (huge depictions on the surface of the ground) are all over the Nazca valley. They said this candelabra was done only 300 years ago as a landmark to guide the ships to this Bay. I am reluctant to accept this idea.”

The Rough Guide to Peru refers to ‘The Paracas Trident’ (El Candelabro) as follows:

“The trail, poorly signposted and barely passable by car, takes you 13km across the hot desert to the Trident, a massive 128m high by 74m wide candelabra carved into the hillside. No one knows its function or its creator, though Eric Von Daniken, author of Chariots of the Gods, speculated that it was a sign for extraterrestrial spacecraft, pointing the way towards the mysterious Nazca Lines that are inland to the southeast; others suggest it was constructed as a navigational aid for eighteenth-century pirates. It seems more likely, however, that it was a kind of pre-Inca ritual object, representing a cactus or tree of life, and that high priests during the Paracas or Nazca eras worshipped the setting sun from this spot.”

The Peruvian tourist website www.peru24x7.com/acuvica advances the opinion that the geoglyph was a navigational aid constructed by Nazca astronomers, based on the orientation of the sculpture related to that of stellar constellations Crux Australis (The Southern Cross) and Centaurus. The coast below comprises sheer, jagged rocks and is not conducive to making landfall. So the mystery endures …

Roland

Dear Auntie G

Auntia G

Dear Auntie G,

At a recent NMK talk by Graham Charles on Copiapoa, we were asked to bring in some plants of the Copiapoa group. Well, I took my pride and joy in, a nice C. cinerea, OK, not huge or a National winner but a nice looking plant. 

So the verdict by Graham: ‘Yes your labelling’s correct, (one up on Trev), BUT the spines are the wrong colour, (Gasp!!) But it’s quite a common occurrence (so shock, horror!!!!!).... I wandered off and amidst lots of muttering I thought I could hear the words ‘common and a mongrel’. The plant is now relegated to a corner with a paper bag on it until I get a new permanent marker pen.

I am too ashamed to give my full name.

Love

T.

Copiapoa cinerea

Dearest T

Oh dear, oh dear… A nice plant to judge by its picture. Thanks. Maybe I missed the point but did Graham actually say it had the wrong coloured spines? (I have cinereas with the same. But he would know.) Who said it was a common plant and a mongrel? Do plants have feelings? Or are you sulking?

I think your attractive plant, (it is impossible for Copiapoas to be beautiful), should discard its paper bag and come out of the closet. It may be a mongrel (and I really suspect that many of the seed raised plants we grow could be and recent revelations on the Forum suggests that habitat plants can also be). The species (and its mongrels?) are slow growing and when it is a cluster a yard across it will be super, (and, condition willing, a National winner).

T’s Copiapoa cinerea - but is it a mongrel?

I note that you write 'with a paper bag on it until I get a new permanent marker pen'. Is the permanent marker to colour in the spines?

Enjoy your plants for what they are. I assess body form, spines and flower size and colour. If these things please me I will grow the plant. This is independent of the 'name' that the botanist or the grower allocate and the status of a plant with the fashion police. If I like it, I try and grow it. But then I am just a silly Auntie.

Cactophilitically,

Auntie G

 

              A warning from those nice CITES people                    

Northants News reports (01.04.08)…

A good friend of mine went to Mexico recently. You are well aware that it is illegal to collect plants in that country but never mind, it was an Opuntia and there were lots and he brought a piece home.

Being an Opuntia it grew lustily in his greenhouse and soon touched the roof. This Spring he was giving his plants the first watering and noticed something strange about his opuntia; it gave a sort of shiver all over. Yes, thought my friend, I must cut back on the Agave juice. Then the plant gave another shiver. Really! And it was really strange.

My friend was a great BCSS Forum reader, he never contributed but now seemed the time to enquire about this strange phenomenon.

Naturally there was a stream of posts condemning his collection of habitat plants until Joe, the Moderator, read the posting. You know Joe, he grows weird things, Mammillarias with numbers, carnivorous plants and snakes and tortoises. And spiders.

In a flash Joe was on the phone to my friend. Get out of there fast, take your family and cats (even the old one) and put as much distance as you can between that greenhouse and you.

Breathless my friend was standing in the road a few minutes later as three police cars, two fire-engines and an ambulance, sirens blaring, screeched to a halt outside his house. A plastic cordon was thrown around his property, one of those plastic strip ones with ‘Police, do not cross’ printed on it a thousand times. Nearby neighbours were ushered away to the local school and given sweet tea and cream cakes from the local Mothers’ Union. Or was it Women’s Institute?

The emergency crews sat in their vehicles, windows firmly up. A burly fireman in full protective gear walked over and asked my friend if he was the owner of THE CACTUS. It was difficult to understand what he was saying through the breathing apparatus. However he accepted a cup of tea. And drank it through a straw. My friend said he had lots of cacti and they were in the greenhouse at the end of the garden.

Bird-eating tarantula on a dinner plate

Bird eating tarantula on a dinner plate

Dragging some heavy equipment behind him the fireman took the path to the back garden. My friend had to be restrained when the fireman took out his cigarette lighter and lit a flame-thrower which he played back and forth over his entire cactus collection. Soon the greenhouse was a buckled ruin and the cacti were smouldering ashes. ‘I say’ said my friend, ‘I know I had a few mealy bugs and an illegal cactus but that seemed a bit extreme’. At that point a government official came over; my friend saw he had Ministry of Farms and Fishing on his donkey jacket.

Follow me the official said and led my friend up the garden path.

"What the hell's going on?" he says.

"Let me show you" says the official. He went over to the opuntia and picked away a crusty bit; the cactus was almost entirely hollow and filled with dead tiger striped bird-eating tarantula spiders, each about the size of two hand spans. Apparently the parent had laid eggs in the cactus years ago which had hatched and grown to full size. When mature the cactus explodes and releases thousands of 15 inch tarantulas which rapidly migrate, biting anything on their way. The bite is excruciatingly painful but only fatal in old people, cats and babies. And birds of course.

The area around was fumigated and my friend and his neighbours were allowed to return to their homes three days later. An ecological disaster had been averted and the only casualty was the old cat who died of oldness a week later and hundreds of cacti which were my friend’s pride and joy. And, of course those bird-eating tarantulas.

The moral of this story is never, ever collect cacti in the wild.

Authorized by those nice CITES people.

 

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