Astrophytum ornatum, in the Venados valley, Hidalgo
The Venados valley around 1400 m above sea level is famous and well known by the endemic growing Cephalocereus senile. While the steep river slopes have a rich succulent flora, the fertile valley is intensively used for agriculture. Apart from extreme steep slopes Astrophytum ornatum find good living cinditions on the limestone and lava penetrated southern hillsides of the valley, which are overgrown by bushes and hechtias. Just off the beaten track there are often dense populations with balanced age distribution. In adult plants, the epidermis is barked from the bottom up to two thirds height red-brown to dark gray. Only young plants up to 13 cm diameter are what we refer to our European collections as "beautiful", namely without brown bark and covered dense with hairy scales. With age, the hairy scales are reduced more and more. Large plants have only a few isolated, strip-shaped areas with hairy scales. Partly among them the epidermis is entirely nude. The closely arranged, felted areoles are densely armored in youth with yellow to honey-yellow, when old with gray-black, 8-11 cm long, straight spines. From a medium distance, they give the impression as if the rib edges are set with a spike comb. While we rarely find in culture rib numbers exceeding eight, up to eleven ribs in the Venados valley are no exception.
Accompanied plants in the Venados valley:
Cephalocereus senilis, Cnidoscolus urens, Coryphantha erecta, Echinocactus platyacanthus, Ferocactus glaucescens, Mammillaria geminispina, Mammillaria longimamma, Myrtillocactus geometrizans, Pachycereus marginatus, Opuntia spec., Tillandsia recurvata.
photos:
series 1
series 2
accompanied plants
map Venados
Astrophytum ornatum
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