Seite 1 von 1

I am hooked on Dyckias... for their beauty...

Verfasst: Samstag, 27 Februar 2010, 18:18
von Constantino Gastaldi
[align=center]I am Brazilian and also I am fond of Dyckias... hooked on them and uncountable times hooked by them.[/align]

[align=center]I do not care enough for just any Dyckia to keep all of them in my garden. A Dyckia must be dazzling to get under my skin. No, not all Dyckias are beautiful and deserve a place in my garden. I am hooked by their beauty and allured by their characteristics and I may say here their, behavior too.[/align]

[align=center]When we decide to keep a plant we turn ourselves in many ways into its server. I shall at least serve the Beauty, not the rare alone but the gorgeous one and not the weird or odd but the stunning Dyckia.[/align]

[align=center]In order to keep a plant live and alive we must search for knowing and this alone makes us better beings for knowledge does wonders on us human beings.
We usually get to be good geographers, skilled gardners, bilogists, taxonomists, sociologists, travellers, multilingual, friends, (Enemies do not count, please.) and many other betterings occur on ourselves. We for sure get better, feel better and we turn ourselves into more worthwhile figures.[/align]

[align=center]Some romantic dreamers think they can repopulate the wilderness so they must keep only true species. This is a fantasy that populates the minds of most of the pure species keepers and the world saver spirits. I myself think this is beautiful but fact is this is nothing practical and once out from its spot place in nature a plant turns to be suspicious and when it is a Dyckia is is an extremely suspicious and dubious plante. No mattering who took the plant nor where the plant stayed exilated it will never be allowed to come back to nature, not in Brazil. An introduced strange gene does uncountable may folds more damage than the removing of plants from a pristine or not habitat.[/align]

[align=center]Dyckias are in a general way very difficult to be identified. They have different looks in different ages, different times, different seasons, different conditions, different culturing methods, different regions and a myriad of different possibilities. Once a friend of mine sent plants he collected in his region. When he saw the plant in my Blog a year later he wanted desperately to know what plants were those...and he is a notable biologist and botanist known and reknown around the globe.[/align]

[align=center]Dyckias are compulsive sex addicted and they are always looking for a nextdoor lover. Stating the seeds came from determined plants is easy, difficult is to determine whose pollen was used to fertilize those identified flowers. Even in Nature these hybrids do occur. A Dyckia hebdingii population in Rio Grande do Sul is 6 km away from another Dyckia species and a cluster of hybrid is defiantly growing amid Dyckia hebdingii individuals. Everything that moves, walks, crawls, flies seem to be Dyckia pollinators. Flies, butterflies, bees and bumbleebees, hummingbirds, ants and more creatures may transfer pollen and some of thse creatures wander far from their nests and otheres have no nests and just keep walking.[/align]

[align=center]No matter who is the source of your seeds. It is questionable specially if this Who is a Dyckia collector or an institution where several Dyckia species are kept together. ( Me included of coursely!) One must isolate plants to get sure seeds or assured pure strain seeds. Plants must be in pots in order to be transfered and secluded. Do not get fooled, Dyckias will hybridize at the minimal chance they might have. Most of the botanic gardens around the world are just like those tetric old Zoos and they keep as diversified as they can be.Some of these renowed Botanic Gardens even sell Dyckia seeds stating this is Dyckia fosteriana when they have huge clusters of fosteriana in bloom close to other Dyckia species also at full bloom. They are beautiful ones, huge ones, even nature fails in having such stunning Dyckia fosteriana clusters...all in open air with lots of other Dyckia species all around. Meanwhile they state purity. This is a sheer case of witchery, no doubt. Witchery, magic, ignorance or bad intention, science it is not!The collectors around that area have the strangest looking Dyckia fosteriana in the the world in their collections. This is tremendously laughble ´cause it is stamped on our faces more than are our noses theys are nt Dyckia fosteriana anymore since long ago.They even distributed seeds or seeds managed to enter Japan, Thailand, Germany, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and people all around point to a zebra and proudly say this is my gnu, my striped gnu. These people are fooled and when I show a collecte from wilderness Dyckia fosteriana some even say: But this is not the one I have. My was sent to me from such and such place and the sender was nothing or nobody less than Ddoe Doe himself. At the point I would even not believe even if The Pope was the sender.[/align]

[align=center]Seeds originated in field (nature) are also questionable! No matter who is there to collect them. Dyckias in nature do not come tagged! We do not find tags in nature!!!! Any and everyone can be fooled in nature and by nature and point out gnus as zebras as well...and this is quite commonOr commoner then we might think![/align]

[align=center]So if you keep pure strain Dyckias and think you may save the species...go and take your horse out from the rain ´cause the animal will get drenched and you won´t go anywhere.
It is a crime in Brazil to remove any plant from the habitat specially if the plant in question is a Dyckia as everybody was made to believe all Dyckias are at risk of extintion. It is a so serious crime there is no way to bail one out from the prision. It is a non bailing crime. ( If you want to have an exact idea of inferno take a look in our prisions. Did you watched that movie Midnight Express? That, in Turkey, is a Five Stars Resort compared to what we have here.) Hard is to find out any who can recognize the plant in his or her basket, but.... But an even worst a crime is to sow seeds from anywhere else or to plant any other plant in nature. A strange gene is much more terrible than any plant removing and once a plant is out its habitat it is not allowed to get back. Imagine we repopulating some Dyckia fosteriana area with those Plants or seeds.....imagine that famous Botanic Garden or its customers´s repopulating the wilderness with their seeds and plants. Dyckias are not obvious plants, they have thousands of masks and they ilude you, fool you and allure you....and they would be fantastic plants just for this hability alone.
[/align]

[align=center]I favor the hybrids, the beauty. Nothing like hybrids! They thrive promptly and right away, they grow easier, they are in their vast majority extremely more beautiful than their parents, they are easier to get, they are legal, they are STUNNING DAZZLING BEAUTIFUL GORGEOUS ALLURING PLANTS and being so they help preserving true ones where theyare since ever. Also they are extremely cheap when compared to what we spend to get to a place in wilderness in the middle of nowhere. Thousands of kilometers away from our home...air ticked, car rental, hotels just to mention some things. [/align]

Most of us keep hybrids and do not even know. Hybrids and bettered Dyckias are more fantastic plants than their nature counterparts ones in most of the cases. Dyckias represent a tremendous potencial and and endless source of magicaly dazzling plant making.
The real adventure toward beauty has just begun and it is not there with our feathered indians ou our highest isolated mountains but in our rooms, our basements, our green houses, our gardens,our minds, our knowledge, our darings, our boldnesses, our souls and spiritis, our dreams.
Be an adventurer, be bold and dare...

Bild

[/img]http://lh4.ggpht.com/_N-s5Qx3NFMg/S4lRr ... 71.jpg[img]

Bild

[/img]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_N-s5Qx3NFMg/S4lRw ... 89.jpg[img]

Bild

[/img]http://lh5.ggpht.com/_N-s5Qx3NFMg/S4lR3 ... 19.jpg[img]

Verfasst: Sonntag, 28 Februar 2010, 14:20
von bluecowno1
Hi, Constantino!

Thank you for your expatiation! And I am deeply touched by your passion toward Dyckia.

Blue, I am fascinated, allured by Dyckias no doubt

Verfasst: Sonntag, 28 Februar 2010, 16:01
von Constantino Gastaldi
Friend, I live in Brazil and I am used to the most beautiful plants, flowers, shrubs, cacti, trees, bromeliads, orchids, succulents and so and so. My eyes are used to the beauty but Dyckias....they ever surprise me, fascinate me, allure me.
They are uncomparable plants regal ones. The effort they made to be as Sun addicted as they really are and the choices they were forced to make to get in touch with the Sun, all amaze me. This all gets me hooked by Dyckias, literally. The more you understand them the more you fall in love. They are unique. They are capable of making their own substrate. They flower uncountable times and may live long enoug to touch eternity. They have so many looks no artist, no dreamer can even wonder. They live in places not even devil dares to go. Their flowers can be beautiful and scented but they do not need them to be extra beautiful and desired plants.
We barely lift the blanket that covers them. We know almost nothing on Dyckias. We have so much to understand.....For instance how did them climbed the mountains for their seeds are heavy and do not travel nor are carried up the mountains by any animal? We just learned the mountains lifted up with them, they were and are formed carrying Dyckias with them.
Where did everything begin, where was the very first one Dyckia living? Why are they so fascinated by their lover The Sun? They even change their color to cope with the schorching tropical mountain Sun. They change their shape and forms, they move their leaves, lift them up and face the Sun with their reflective under leaf sides. They survive fires, they may live close to the sea, so close they get sea water spray on their faces. They may live so high in the Tropic Mountains they freeze every night. Some that live up North in our central region endure a seven month drough every year! Some live on rocks inside the Amazon Forest. Some go South around the beautiful Buenos Aires . Some grows in Uruguayan plains and are cultivated in fine and well kept gardens of the magic City of Punta del Este. Others habit all areas of Paraguay and most of these are scented. A very few exist in Bolivia and share habitat with tillandsias and Puyas. Some go West reaching the Andean region and they are used to the flight of the majestic Andean condor. They share habitat with our Puma from Northeast Santa Catarina to the home of the lhama. They are South American, they are Brazilian, Paraguayan, Uruguayan, Bolivian... They are all so fantastic they are refugees from Paradise...they scaped from heavens to live here... for here is much better than Paradise...South America my home... Come, come here get a close idea of Paradise...take my hand I am not a stranger in Paradise...

Dyckia beatea
Bild

Dyckia gehringii
Bild

Dyckia fosteriana
Bild

Some dyckias are so lucky..they come back..this is the postman
Bild

Verfasst: Dienstag, 9 März 2010, 9:04
von El Fakir
You're right, Constantino !!
The only problem with Dyckia is that take so much space!!!!

Verfasst: Dienstag, 9 März 2010, 9:08
von El Fakir
and so spiny!...
We must be some kind of Masochism lover!... :wink:

..or we might be painters....

Verfasst: Dienstag, 9 März 2010, 16:18
von Constantino Gastaldi
[align=center]...and we use living material to make masterpieces of art...living..live and alive...[/align]
[align=center]Bild[/align]
[align=center]Bild
[/align]
[align=center]Don´t you think so?[/align]
...or dreamers? What would be of the world without dreamers?
What a drab, faint and graceless world this would be!
...I have a ................. a million dreams.

Thanks

Verfasst: Dienstag, 9 März 2010, 19:00
von El Fakir
Spiny masochist loving dreamers :D

What a nice piece of Ortho and Dyckias!!!!

Verfasst: Mittwoch, 10 März 2010, 23:02
von Charles
Inspirational Constantino,thank you for posting these jewels,and for your enthusiasm and passion,you have me well and truely hooked!
Charles

Verfasst: Donnerstag, 18 März 2010, 4:13
von Constantino Gastaldi
Yes, the more I am used to them, the more I ge to know them the more I get hooked by them.