Dirk’s collection of cristate and variegated cacti

Dirk is a lucky man. Anyway, judged by the quality of his collection of crested and variegated cacti, he has to be ;-) I think you’ll agree after seeing the pictures that Dirk has been kind enough to let me share in this post.


Ariocarpus retusus var. elongata crest

I’m particularly fond of this photo of a cristate Ariocarpus retusus, resembling a plant creature one would not be too surprised to encounter in a Tolkien novel.

Dirk is living in Belgium and knows a commercial cactus grower in Holland who lets him pick and choose interesting seedlings when he’s visiting (to stock up on Harrisia for grafting). On this account Dirk has got quite a collection of variegated Lophophora.


Lophophora williamsii f. variegata

I especially like the pastel pink, yellow, and green colors of the above plant – it’s almost a wine gum look-alike ;-) But the rest of the collection is definitely also nice.


Lophophora williamsii f. variegata grafted on Harrisia


Lophophora williamsii f. variegata 'Zebra'


Collection of variegated Lophophora williamsii

Dirk also has plants showing dichotomous branching like these beautifully symmetric two-headed Obregonia denegrii and Lophophora williamsii plants.


Two-headed Obregonia denegrii


Collection of two-headed Lophophora williamsii

Last I heard from Dirk he had just returned from a visit to the 2007 ELK. He had tried to obtain a cristate Lophophora – unfortunately without any luck. You can see more of Dirk’s amazing collection at his cactelders web site.

I hope you enjoyed this featured collection - if you have pictures or information you would like to share, you can drop me a mail at “lophophora [dot] blog [at] gmail [dot] com”.

In search of Echinocereus reichenbachii in Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge

I recently revisited Oklahoma City. Having heard that Echinocereus reichenbachii is abundant in the millions in Oklahoma, I decided to see if I could find some of these fascinating plants in habitat where they occur in many stem forms and spine colors. E. reichenbachii grows in several of the state parks in western Oklahoma, but after a bit of research I decided on visiting the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is within easy driving distance from OKC (head southwest on highway 44 for an hour or so, then take the Medicine Park exit just north of Lawton) and apart from cacti it also boasts a rare remnant mixed grass prairie, an island where the natural grasslands escaped destruction thanks to the granite outcrops rendering the land impossible to plow.


A cluster of Echinocereus reichenbachii var. albispinus

All the Echinocereus plants I found were of the variety Echinocereus reichenbachii var. albispinus (or Echinocereus baileyi if you consider it a full species). It seems like the plants prefer to grow in fissures in the granitic rock, especially if moss is also growing in the fissures.


E. reichenbachii var. albispinus growing in moss

The pictured plants are growing in the open prairie grasslands south-east of Mount Scott. It’s quite amazing that most of the plants seem undamaged by the grazing herds of bison and longhorn; I would expect such a large animal could trample an Echinocereus underfoot without even noticing it, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.


Grazing bison

I also saw a few Opuntia plants – probably O. phaeacantha – with beautiful carmine-red fruits. The pictured plant is growing on the southern bank of Quanah Parker Lake; named for the Quanah Parker of Native American Church fame.


Fruiting Opuntia sp. (O. phaeacantha?)

The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge is a very interesting place to visit and I wish I had had more time (unfortunately I had to deal with delayed baggage, limiting the visit to half a day). It comes highly recommended if you are looking for Echinocereus reichenbachii var. albispinus (= Echinocereus baileyi) or bison ;-)

You can find more photos from my visit at http://public.fotki.com/WichitaMountainsWR/.