Astrophytum myriostigma at the mine of San Rafael, San Luis Potosí
History:
Dr. Carl Albert Purpus visited in 1910 on one of his extensive plant collection trips the flourishing mining town San Rafael. Presumably he used the nearby railway line San Luis Potosi - Tampico to go from his residence Hacienda Miredor at Huatusco, Vera Cruz, to this area. Earlier, he had something like this visited remote places in northern Mexico where he among other things picked up for Dr. Brandegee unknown or rare plants. On his trip to the vicinity of the mine San Rafael still remember names such as Echeveria lutea Rose, Ferocactus ecchidne D. C. Britton & Rose (F. rafaelensis J. A. Purpus), Mammillaria dumetorum J. A. Purpus, M. pilispina J. A. Purpus and Pachyphytum oviferum J. A. Purpus. His brother Joseph Anton reported in 1911 in the German monthly publication for cactus (Monatsschrift für Kakteenkunde) that Carl Albert found Astrophytum myriostigma in the vicinity of San Rafael and in the mountains of the Sierra de Tablas. It's an amazing, almost inexplicable fact that the locality Minas de San Rafael after the visit of Purpus fell into oblivion. Almost half a century it remained missing and no botanist or plant lover could find it again.
Location:
The Myroistigmas grow here under extremely dense bushes on a little hill and now in autumn foliage-free acacia. Mostly they live at the edge of hechtia islands. They do not differ in the habit from those in Charco Blanco, Villar, Cerritos or the railway station Las Tablas. There are all shapes, numbers of ribs and covering with hairy scales represented within this population. Although half-nude and nude Astrophytum myriostigma occur elsewhere preferably under dense bottom growth, here there are frquent free-standing specimens. The plants are typically 5 to 7-ribbed. Only if they are biten by animals, they show many-ribbed shoots. At this sight the statement of Purpus gains new meaning that Myriostigmas in this area more often grow in multi-headed clumps. There must have been as early as 1910 an intensive grazing in the southern foothills of the Sierra el Tablon.
photos:
Astrophytum myriostigma
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