Thursday, 29 November 2018 – Around Almenare
After yesterday’s full on Coleocephalocereus explorations, today promised more of the same. S3737 gave us C. aureus as well as a Melocactus sp. (I’m sure that Marlon provided species names for Alain that he would share later, but not yet due to lack of time since coming home.), Pilosocereus pachycladus (?) and Tacinga funalis and T. inamoena as well as Bromeliads (Bilbergia sp. and Dyckia sp.). A large yellow flowering terrestrial orchid completed the roll call here.
Again hot and humid at S3738 where I photographed Tacinga funalis or is it T. braunii? Pictures elsewhere on the internet are very similar to each other and may be mislabelled. Perhaps their photographers are as confused as I am. Marlon, please help! Here is what we saw:
The cropped close ups of the inselberg look as though there are Coleocephalocereus growing between the Bromeliads, or are they burned Bromeliad stems? Very similar situation compared to S3739. Here there was competition from a small herd of cattle.
It started to rain so it became more difficult at S3740 to get useful images as light levels dropped. My guess is that what we saw were the sp. nova.
The sky had cleared again by the time we reached S3741 where we saw Pilosocereus sp. S3742 had the Coleocephalocereus sp. nova and the rocks were dry enough for the others to walk up to touching distance of the plants. I was happy to stay in the car.
The three images taken at S3743 shows that the inselbergs were again shrouded in clouds – time to get back to our hotel!
The Cactus Trip Diaries 