Contents Volume 26. No 2

Summer 2015

Editorial and more Trevor Wray
Viscum minimum Again LLoyd Gordon
Peru 2014 (Part 2) David Kirkbright
A Hill in Coahuilla, Mexico Trevor Wray

1951 - A Landmark Year

Roland Tebbenham

Cumulopuntia sphaerica flower

Cover picture: This is a flowering plant of Cumulopuntia sphaerica seen by our David in Peru on his visit last year, (lucky devil!). I wrote similar in the last issue but this issue has his most welcome article ’Part 2’  on page 8. Which on the internet edition is here

 

 

 

EDITORIAL and more.....

Welcome to the summer 2015 issue of NN, your branch magazine.

Chelsea 2015

When I looked at the TV series about Chelsea in May I was fascinated, enthralled, captivated, charmed, entranced and all those other gushing superlatives the presenters use. Also appalled, shocked, horrified, bored and revolted. Chelsea can produce the full range of emotions.

However I am not a great Chelsea person – too many people and a great many of them are not gardeners. “Must do Chelsea, daarling.” And I must get to the point…

There was a garden featured which included some cacti. Fair enough. But these were in a planter floating in a pond. Gush, gush went the presenters.

What a load of bxxxxs went your editor.

So Chelsea – you can keep it.

Total Trivia

While I was away in Mexico I emailed the FL from our hotel using their computer. (Which spoke only Spanish, naturally.)  Most of my English email was underlined in red to indicate misspellings and in an idle moment I ‘corrected’ my text, when there was a suggestion, as follows…

 Hi hope weekend cent OK watt twips. (Prease excuse sparrings aguín, I see Spellcheck is in Spines aguín.) Secta yo Willy be retornan tema tomaros, ratera toda yogur time.

Tingas ere gong as usual and de ave ven show soma raro plantas vi a guide toda. I round tao interesting especies of Sedan chile rating lunch chicha anudes te partí.

De ave ven haming soma interesting dineros ratel. Lasto light de ha Margaritas (phis, sport chat light), in polystyrene beepers whch costa 80 pesos (A bit les tan tour pounds… etc.

Here ‘spines’ has nothing to do with cacti and ‘Sedans’ are to my taste!

Kildare Green?

I grow two plants with the name Echeveria macdougallii, though strictly speaking one came under the name Echeveria sedoides, a synonym. They are quite different though both have ‘sedoides’ leaves. One had ‘ex ISI’ on the label though this has been distributed twice from different habitat collections. This plant flowers frequently with typical Echeveria flowers. The other, under the E. sedoides name, was forming a small shrub and looks really Sedum-like. It has not flowered yet.

To try and clarify what was going on I looked up the first description and the distribution details for ISI plants. Describing the new species in 1958 in the US journal, Eric Walther wrote…

Color: Leaves oil- to cosse-green, in sun tinged oxblood-red at edges and apex; peduncle chrysolite-green; bracts as the leaves, or more absinthe-green; sepals kildare-green tinged deep corinthian-red; corolla peach-red to spectrum-red on outside, lemon-chrome inside; carpels bittersweet-pink; styles corinthian-purple; nectaries straw-yellow.

Kildare-green, bittersweet-pink… Ah, they don’t write descriptions like that anymore!

Watch out for the Madagascan palm cactus

In the Daily Mail I read this report in July

OAP is poisoned by her pot plant

A PENSIONER was left ‘writhing in agony’ and in hospital for a week after being poisoned by one of her pot plants.

Rita Savage, 70, was spiked by the rare Madagascar palm cactus while repotting it. She was soon in agony as her fingers swelled up and she had to be rushed to hospital in an ambulance.

Mrs. Savage was treated with antihistamines and antibiotics to control the swelling for several days before being discharged. Now she is warning others of the danger of the poisonous plant.

She said; ‘The pain was just unimaginable. I would have chopped of my hand off if I could have. …

Husband William, 81, said; ‘it was like The Day of the Triffids…’

You will know that the Madagascan palm cactus is not, (in a botanical sense), a palm, or a cactus either. True, it is a native of Madagascar. It is the well known Pachypodium lamerei, grown in huge numbers in Dutch nurseries, and elsewhere, as a house plant. 

Pachypodium lamerei

Above: Madagascan palm cactus? Pachypodium lamerei (Image thanks to our friends at Cactus Art)

So what of the paper’s report? Mind-Altering and Poisonous Plants of the World’ tells us, All species of Pachypodium are toxic to humans'

And in answer to the question ‘Will the Madagascar palm injure my cat?’ the SFGate website says

The Madagascar palm (Pachypodium lamerei) may resemble a palm tree, but it's actually a type of succulent.

Although it's an attractive addition to your home, the Madagascar palm is toxic to both people and cats if ingested, and has dangerously sharp spines.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the Madagascar palm is its large, sharp, tri-tipped spines that are around 2½ inches in size, according to the University of Oklahoma Department of Microbiology & Plant Biology. If this plant is placed in the path of your feline friend, it could become seriously injured if it brushes past or runs into the plant's spine-covered trunk. Any scratches or punctures can quickly become infected if not treated by a veterinarian, warns the Catster website. More serious injuries can affect the cat's eyes, nose or mouth if it tries to chew on the plant.

I might treat this website with some respect if the illustration of that dangerous Madagascan palm was not of an actual cactus of the Trichocereus persuasion. 

Also having lived with four long lived cats over the last 25 years they have coexisted with cacti and succulents (including Pachypodiums) without any problems. They soon learnt that although they could sleep in the warm sunny greenhouses on the cacti it was better to sleep on the Lithops. They occasionally ate grass but never, ever anything with spines.

So the moral of this story is – Do not, or let your cats, eat Pachypodiums.

‘Pink Ruffles’

Cotyledon Pink Ruffles and undulata

I grow a form of Cotyledon orbiculata that has undulate leaf margins and was called C. undulata. It was brought home as a stem cutting from a bush growing near Graaff-Reinet in South Africa. It is an attractive form of this very variable species but the flowers are the same as other clones I have of orbiculata.

At the last National Convention I bought a plant called Cotyledon undulata ‘Pink Ruffles’. It was more heavily dusted with the attractive farina seen on some forms of orbiculata but suffused pink as suggested in the name. Quite unusual, but I had real reservations about the name; a great many Echeveria hybrids are similar and there were no results at the time from a web search. (Though C. undulata ‘Silver Ruffles’ was there.) 

I thought my suspicions were confirmed when ‘Pink Ruffles’ sent up a flower spike with several leaves along the stalk, (what the botanists sometimes call ‘bracts’). Now my Cotyledon orbiculata almost never do this and my Echeveria often do so case solved. Except the flower stem developed regular Cotyledon orbiculata flowers. (See right)

There is still nearly nothing on the internet, (though now there will be more), but this is an interesting and attractive variation to add to my collection of related plants. The plant has proved easy to grow in a sunny greenhouse kept (mostly) frost free.

For fun I have pollinated it with pollen from one of the small-leaved, orange flowered clones I have of C. orbiculata.

Above: Two forms of Cotyledon orbiculata compared. My new 'Pink Ruffles' on the left and a clone of 'undulata' from Graaff-Reinet on the right.

Right: 'Pink Ruffles' in flower has typical Cotyledon orbiculata flowers.

Cotyledon 'Pink Ruffles' in flower

click for more

Opuntia pulchella

You might remember that some while ago I featured Opuntia, (or Micropuntia), pulchella in flower on the front cover of our magazine. I hope an attractive image. (Left) Click here for the original.

The cuttings I collected in Nevada in the spring of 2008 rooted and flowered immediately. Possibly the flowers were buds just waiting to grow when I took the cuttings.

The plants have flowered regularly since and the flower on the cover was from 2011. Anyway in autumn 2014 I noticed the flower pots were gently bulging and discovered that they had produced the caudex, (or swollen root), noted for the species, though not always, some apparently do not form one.

As I gave this plant a bigger, deeper pot I wondered whether I should give the swollen root some prominence above the ground. This is the fashion since caudiciforms were ‘invented’.  No, I thought; in habitat there is no clue that much of this plant, like an iceberg, was beneath the surface. So I potted it with just the stem above the compost level.

We read that whole plants are collected in habitats, but for many sorts, both cacti and other succulents, cuttings or even leaves are sufficient to replicate the plant in our greenhouses. Or even better seeds. You can capture some of the natural variation in a species with just one fruit. Worth thinking about.

Right: Like an iceberg, much of Opuntia pulchella is out of sight.

Opuntia pulchella with caudex

This issue

Not much room here (in the printed edition), but enjoy the magazine, write something, (anything), for it and come to our meetings. There is a great programme.

Cactophilitically

Trev

Northampton and Milton Keynes Branch of the B.C.S.S.

recent back issues of the NMK Branch magazine

Northants News Volume 26.1

Northants News Volume 25.3

Northants News Volume 25.2