The Cactus Trip Diaries

We woke up at 7 a.m. as usual and by 8 were enjoying a very civilised breakfast on the Cathedral Square. We needed to collect the car from the off-site car park by nine and we anticipated some delay there as last night cars were parked bumper to bumper, using up every inch of space. However, this morning we were only one of a few cars left and there were only two turns between the car park and the hotel, and no traffic so early in the day.

The drive out of town was also not the nightmare of last night and so we found ourselves on the road to Tehuantepec. We had just one stop planned, AB666 from Alain’s previous trip. But some 10 km before getting there, we asked for a quick stop to photograph the Pilosocereus sp that had started to appear along the side of the road.

The next stop, at AB666, gave us Mammillaria nejapensis growing in the shade of a dark rock wall, as well as Pachycereus pecten-boriginum and Ceiba pentandra (kapok tree), Stenocereus (Isolatocereus) dumortieri, Neobuxbaumia scoparia and the Pilosocereus. CactiGuide.com lists the following taxa for Oaxaca P. chrysacanthus, P. collinsii, P. purpusii and P. quadricentralis. That will take some more sorting out when I get home.