Opuntiads of the USA

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Sept. 10 Thursday (Day 4)

Our first stop of the day was not too far out of town. The first cactus I saw was Opuntia quitensis, again in bloom. There was fairly thick brush along the road, but once you got through this it thinned out. I saw another Pereskia horrida, this one about 3 feet tall, again without leaves except at the tips. There were hundreds of Melocactus bellavistensis here along with Espostoa superba, Armatocereus rauhii, and Browningia altissima.

Further down the road we were again stopped for road construction. The road wouldn't open for an hour and 45 minutes. So we drove to the top of hill to look around and have lunch. No new plants here but there were plants, and several people cutting firewood with machetes and axes. They would bundle up huge piles, put them on their shoulders and carry them down the hill. There were also several stands of Agave here and several were covered with bulbils. Agaves are not native here but have naturalized all over the place. It wasn't uncommon to be out in the middle of nowhere and see Agave high on the mountains. They are still planted as fences and ornamentals as well.

After lunch the road re-opened and we were on our way. At one point we were in a river canyon with sheer cliffs on both sides that were covered in bromeliads. We stopped near a bridge so that we could look on both sides of the river. There were some cacti here as well, Rhipsalis and probably Selenicereus, but out of reach and too steep to climb.

Further on we made a stop to see Corryocactus chachapoyensis. The plants here were small. Also here were a new Cleistocactus (huchisonii nn) and more Melocactus bellavistensis. These were growing in a boulder field with fairly lush vegetation growing wherever it could.

Just before Leymebamba we were again following the river along a wider river valley. All the trees here were smothered in bromeliads.

We got into Leymebamba just before dusk. It was a quaint little town with a very small town square. I had managed to collect a few seeds and wanted to clean them so we walked from the hotel downtown to find paper towels. I'm pretty sure we went into every store in town and finally at the last one about a block from where we started we found them. They had one roll. They cost about 45 cents.

Craig Howe

Armatocereus rauhii

Armatocereus rauhii

Browningia altissima

Browningia altissima

Browningia altissima

Cleistocereus tenuiserpens

Corryocactus chachapoyensis

Espostoa lanata superba

Melocactus bellavistensis