OK, time to close out the blog series centered around my amazing visit to Monterrey, Mexico. Let’s go out with a bang. Well, a bang if you love cactus, that is. After four very busy days touring around much of the state of Nuevo León, I accumulated a few thousand photos. It took me days to weed through…
The battle between prey and predator has been going on since the beginning of time. In the animal kingdom, prey evolved defenses like camouflage, aposematism and mimicry to protect themselves from becoming a meal. Much study has been done in the animal kingdom on the use of camouflage as a defense mechanism. In the plant world, it was a seldom…
The gypsum outcrops that are found around the state of Nuevo León in Mexico are famous for the many unique plants which are endemic to them. Gypsum soils occupy large areas of Nuevo León and host a lot of biological diversity. It seems that each year some new species is being described that can only be found on these gypsum…
The cultivation of plants brings endless smiles to the fields of the initiated. As a lover of flora, being able to grow plants in your garden or greenhouse is truly a joyous pastime. One in which I proudly devote far too much time. However, for me there is a level above this. That level is being…
I didn’t know it before my visit to Oaxaca, Mexico, but this state is the location of the widest tree trunk in the world. Once I found this out, it of course became a must-see stop. Sadly, my traveling companions were not as excited. After a very long day touring the ruins of Monte Albán and sightseeing around…
With the ever increasing popularity of water-wise gardens in Southern California, there is a similar increase in new plants available. The palette for gardeners increases almost daily. One plant that has been around for a while appears to me to be unjustly absent from that palette of many of these new water-wise gardeners. It is a plant that…
This post most likely won’t be overly exciting to anyone other than a cactus collector. Still, a true plant lover can’t but appreciate the flowers on my Geohintonia mexicana that just opened. Cactus are the butt of many jokes from a few of my close, fellow plant collector friends that never got into the ‘cactus craze.’ Their belief is…
The original plant of Echeveria agavoides ‘Ebony’ was wild collected from habitat near Coahuila, Mexico, by John Trager and Myron Kimnach and it was first distributed by the International Succulent Introduction (ISI). Since its introduction into cultivation in early 2000, Echeveria agavoides ‘Ebony’ has been a collector’s delight. Slower to offset compared to other Echeveria agavoides types and greater growing difficulty in cultivation have…