HOOCK, H. 1989 . Brit. Cact. Succ. Journ. (GB) Band: 7 Heft (2) Seite 49-50 A Beautiful Cristate of Astrophytum ornatum
A Beautiful Cristate of Astrophytum ornatum
(Translation from German into English by E. W. Putnam)
The Venados Valley in the Mexican Federal State of Hidalgo is well-known and famed for its unique succulent flora which for over 150 years has attracted visits from collectors and botanists. It is also known as the Valley of the Old Men, because of the Cephalocereus senilis (Haw.) Pfeiffer, or as the Barranca de Metztitlan. The little village of Metztitlan lies in the centre of a landscape that can truly be called a natural rock-garden.
My friend Ulrich Bernhard and I spent several days in the wild and romantic Barranca studying Astrophytum ornatum. On the slopes of the river valley these plants are to be found in all sizes, from seedlings up to great columns nearly two metres high, some scattered or in loose groupings, some in dense groups as shown in the picture of the vegetation. Naturally the “Old Men” native to the valley are conspicuous because of their height, but so are Echinocactus ingens Zuccarini, great clumps of Mammillaria geminispina Haworth, Thelocactus horripilus (Lemaire) Kladiwa, Marginatocereus marginatus (D.C.) Backeberg, Stenocereus dumortieri (Scheidweiler) Buxbaum, Ferocactus glaucescens (D.C.) Britton & Rose and Myrtillocactus geometrizans (Martius) Console as well as the ground-covering Agaves and Hechtias. My inadvertent bodily contact with the comparatively inconspicuous Cnidosculos urens (Linne) Arthur, the “mala mujer” (the wicked woman), taught me that compared with this the touch with our own native stinging nettles (Urtica) is no more than a joke. Even days after this experience the affected area of skin were still painfully swollen.
Not far from the village of Metztitlan, on a side valley of Venados intensively grazed by goats, grows the beautiful cristate of Astrophytum ornatum shown in the photographs. There are indeed occasional similar growth-forms with multiple heads or dichotomous crowns present in the habitat, but this plant far outshines all others. Nor has it caused by damage: over the last few decades the ribs have multiplied almost with the regularity of a geometric progression (see sketch). In the fasciated crown region the wavy rib inserts predominate, though here they occasionally occur spontaneously. At an overall height of about 80 cm and a diameter of 22 cm this A. ornatum looks more like the massive growth-form of Astrophytum ornatum v. mirbelii Lemaire along the Rio Tula and the Rio Moctezuma.
Surprisingly the cristate part, 24 cm long and 22 cm wide, is only slightly oval though it already displays 46 ribs. The fact that cristates can flower is proved by the numerous flower-remains in the crown and more than fifty fresh flower buds in this region. A sowing of seed from this plant has, up to now, three years later, produced progeny which do not differ from the normal form of. A. ornatum from Metztitlan. General experience is that that the generative propagation of cristates is not possible; the cause of fasciation itself is still a mystery.
Apart from Astrophytum asterias (Zucc.) Lem., wild-growing cristate forms of all the taxa in the genus have been found, though they are very rare. It seems however that they are found more commonly in the evolutionarily older species. (Klaus, W. 1976). H. Johnson mentions a find in 1961 in the barranca de Metztitlan. In absence of photographs unfortunately one cannot tell whether this was the same plant. This beautiful Astrophytum ornatum must have already been living in the habitat when De Candolle in 1928 got a specimen exactly from this area for the original description. From its size it has evidently survived the main perils of existence, which for seedlings come from grazing goats and in later life from the collecting activities of European cactophiles and dealers. So it is to be hoped that it will be able to go on growing undisturbed for many more years.
Literature:
BERNHARD, U. (1987): Astrophytum ornatum (DE CANDOLLE) WEBER in der Barranca von Metztitlan, Kakt. and. Sukk. 38 (10): 235
FITTKAU, H. W. (1979): Astrophytum ornatum (DE CANDOLLE) WEBER, Kakt. and. Sukk. 30 (4): 32
JOHNSON, H. (1961): Our Mexican Diary - Part II, Cact. Succ. Journ. (US) 33 (3): 85
KLAUS, W. (1976): Wuchsformen von Astrophytum coahuilense (MOELLER) KAYSER, Kakt. and. Sukk. 27 (7): 161
SADOVSKY, O.; SCHÜTZ, B. (1979): Die Gattung Astrophytum, Flora-Verlag, Titisee-Neustadt: 21
SCHMOLL, F. (1934): List of Cacti Plants, (Firmenkatalog): 1
Photos:
Astrophytum ornatum (1) The cristate Astrophytum ornatum in its habitat near the village of Metztitlan
Astrophytum ornatum (2) Close-up of the fasciated crown, illustrating how the ribs have multiplied
Diagram showing the relationship between the number of ribs and the height above the ground which they were counted
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