The Cactus Trip Diaries

Monday 16 February 2009 – Arroyo Grande to Fremont, San Francisco

Sunday 15 February 2009 – Carpenteria to Arroyo Grande

Tuesday 10 February 2009  – Visit to Loran Whitelock

Eunice had some things to do and had arranged to meet us around midday, to take us to the cycad collection of a prominent grower – Loran M. Whitelock (S1232). Loran holds a B.S. in botany and zoology, with a minor in microbiology. For many years he worked for the Los Angeles health department, until he changed careers to become a landscape designer. He has travelled to many countries to collect and study cycads, including Africa, China, and Mexico; author of the book ‘The Cycads’ (2002) – all according to the biography on his website. We just know that the 79 year old was a member of a small party that included Eunice that travelled into Baja California over Christmas 2008. As Eunice says: ‘Somebody had to.’

If yesterday’s visit to Lotusland showed us what could be achieved with mass planting, Loran’s garden took this concept to a new level – his garden, of somewhat over an acre in size was jam packed with plants – just about every conceivable cycad species plus an extensive range of palms, plus the smaller Agaves and Aloes (although there was also a monster Aloe bainesii that rivals the giant that grows at the Huntington Botanic Gardens). There was also the largest Elephant’s Foot or Pony Tail Palm that I have ever seen. Just as the common name is confusing, as the plant has nothing to do with any Elephant appendage and neither is it a Palm, so the Latin names are controversial with some authorities calling them Nolina recurvata, a member of the Agavaceae or the Nolinaceae, while yet others call them Beaucarnea recurvata, as a member of the Family Ruscaceae in the order Asparagales. Whatever the name, it was a spectacular plant. There was even something of interest for simple Cactus Explorers – various epiphytic cacti, again of mammoth proportions. We spent some three hours clicking away with our cameras on yet another sunny day and marvelled at how many huge plants it is possible to squeeze into such a small area.

I also learned that palms can take on many shapes and that some of the oldest plants in his collection were among the smallest and, I regret to say, not the most attractive ones. You have to be a real fanatic to call some of them ‘beautiful’.

All these delights were served up with cold Mexican beers. Another great day!

Monday 9 February 2009 – Santa Barbara to Bellflower

The weather forecast had predicted a 70% chance of rain. It poured down when we got up, packed the car and found a Starbucks for breakfast. We had arranged to meet John Bleck in the car park near Starbucks and there he was, almost hidden by his umbrella. For those who do not know John, he is a retired horticulturist who looked after the plants at the University of California in Santa Barbara, (UCSB) and gained some fame as the creator of Aloe hybrids such as the famous ‘Lizard Lips’.

He was part of the ‘in crowd’ that included Charlie Glass & Bob Foster and was a true ‘Beach Boy’, starting as a Life Guard at the age of 16 and still swimming competitively now at the age of 75. He’s ranked in the top 10 of the US Master Swimming classes in the 75 – 80 age group, having been consistently in the top 10 for the last 20 years or so. I’m sure that a full biography would reveal many more interesting facts about John than a quick search on Google could come up with. Respect!

We drove the short distance to the entrance of Lotusland (S1228). I’ll save time by directing you to their website for the full story:
http://www.lotusland.org/welcome.htm

I recommend that you take a look at the History and Garden sections in particular. The key points for us were that:

a) The Gardens are famous in the cactus world because for a while Charlie Glass & Bob Foster were responsible for the gardening design and maintenance

b) The owner’s vision was for complete over-the- top mass planting that works surprisingly well, particularly from a photographic perspective

c) Admission is normally US$ 35 per person and we were getting in for free

d) We were being shown round by John, who seems to know everything about everything and by the assistant curator, Paul Mills, who is married to a Chilean lady he met during his days as a surfer in Pichilemu, where they still have a house. Juan & Florencia might be interested to know that he’d love to meet up with Chilean cactus enthusiasts! and

e) They had fairly recently received a collection (the Dunlap collection) of mature (larger than we saw in habitat in Peru!) Weberbauerocereus, grown from ex-habitat material received from Peru in the 1960s / 70s, including ex Ritter and KK & KZ material. I was hoping to take their pictures together with their name tags – Paul M was hoping that I might provide names where they were missing or correct some of the existing names. A typical case of the blind leading the blind!

The day was ‘AWESOME!’ The sun came out, the sky was clear, the light played on the raindrops left hanging on cactus spines and the conversation centred on all the things that we wanted to know. As you can see from the website, Lotusland is much more than just a cactus garden. They have a tremendous collection of cycads and we saw more species of palms than I would have guessed existed. Their Blue Garden was an eye opener and the theme seemed to be extended elsewhere, with bluish Agave americana planted with bluish Opuntia etc. Mass planting really works here. You’ll have to wait to see the pictures!

S1229 was at the Channel Islands National Park visitors centre, which was at the harbour where the boats (ferries) left to the islands. There was a modest botanical garden where some of the endemic island species, including Dudleyas, were on display with name tags.

S1230 was somewhere along the coast along Highway 101 (? – I still need to plot our stops on Google Earth), north of Malibu, where the coastal hills had cactus (Opuntia litoralis) and a white waxed Dudleya dotted in the rocks. On closer examination, there were (again) two species of Dudleya. Never mind their names – there usually seem to be a broad spatulate leafed Dudleya (Dudleya pulverulenta?) growing alongside a thin lanceolate leafed sp.(Dudleya lanceolata). Sometimes there are intermediates, sometimes there are not. It seems that particularly on the broad leafed plants there are those with ‘white wax’ (farina) and those without (green forms). It seems that these ‘forms’ are sometimes given separate names while at other times they are considered to be just a single variable species. When I get back to the UK I’ll have to sit down with all my Dudleya pics and see how consistent these observations are and what the names might be at the various locations, to see if there is a pattern developing and, if so, what the reason might be.

S1231 is just a collection of some 20 pictures taken of a sunset along Hwy 101 in Malibu, before the guy from the parking lot wanted to collect US$ 7 as it turned out that this public car park was for use of customers of an Ocean side restaurant that looked much too exclusive for bums like us.

Saturday 8 March 2008 – San Diego

Friday, 7 March 2008 – L.A. to San Diego

Last night’s drive ‘home’ provided all the excitement I needed for a little while, so as there was nothing much to keep me at Motel 6 (I had to balance my laptop on top of the fridge in the corner nearest to the reception office in order to get a hit and miss signal), I had a brief chat on Windows Messenger Live and then set off for a coffee at Eunice’s and some last minute tuning of Baja Plans. I also met her best friend, Gloriana, from Cuba, who made it possible for us to visit Costco, the local Cash & Carry where they were selling 4 GB CompactFlash cards (Ultra II) at US$ 27, if memory serves. Once Alain had gone home, I realised that I would be in trouble if the one card I had brought should give up the ghost, although I could have carried on snapping with the Coolpix.

With the larger card, I might try a few sessions shooting in RAW + jpg format.

The other good news was an email with very interesting plant data that was waiting for me once I was back on-line at Motel 6 in San Diego. This is where it all began just 5 weeks ago on 1 February. Alain might be interested to know that I’m in room 123 – ground floor, diagonally opposite to where we were on arrival. OK wifi signal. Password is still ‘beach’ – good job I could remember. Now that Cliff & Ian will probably be in too much of a rush to read today’s Diary page, I won’t burden the remainder of the audience with the plant details (Alain, Angie, see separate brief email to follow).

So, little more to do then wait. Oh, and do a presentation in San Diego tomorrow afternoon, that should make the waiting a bit easier. Getting quite excited about the forthcoming trip, as though it is a brand new adventure, which of course it is! No two Copiapoathons have ever been the same and I doubt that Baja will be any different in this respect.

Not sure if I’ll be able to fit tomorrow’s Diary page in, as I’m sure Cliff & Ian will have lots to talk about when they get here.

Thursday, 6 March 2008 – Talk at L.A. C&S Soc

Ever been lost in a really large city, in the dark? I have! 🙂

But clearly and fortunately, common sense got me out of trouble, and here I am, in my safe and cosy Motel 6 room (#205) somewhere north  west (?) of L.A., just as planned.

But, let’s start at the beginning, when I woke up in Carlsbad and had my by now customary chat on Windows Live Messenger with Angie. This was followed with my last visit for a while to the Carlsbad Denny’s for breakfast and a lazy drive north to L.A. – first to the Bell Flower neighbourhood where Eunice had invited me to conduct a mealy bug inspection (honest, that’s what we call a visit to somebody else’s collection among our UK clan and I can report that none were found.) Very nice, although perhaps not as many cacti as I would have liked. However, lots of hybrid Aloe, Agave, Echeveria and Dudleya. The camera clicked as usual.

Then another healthy lunch at the local Mimies, and although the food was very good, the waitress service was ‘standard’, rather than the previous ‘exceptional’.

But it had all taken more time than I had planned, so instead of finding a Motel 6 near the venue for my talk, booking in, freshening up and go to the talk, only 5 miles away, it was a case of going straight to the venue. Google map had warned that the journey could take from 41 minutes to 2:30 hours! I had allowed 2:30, but would have preferred to have arrived earlier to walk through the community gardens and chat with some of the members. I was welcomed by the Society’s President, Jeff Karsner, whom I had met earlier at The Huntington. But immediately, one of the members, Chris Rogers, had recognised me and greeted me like a long lost friend, telling everyone how, when he was really ill in Argentina, on our 2005 trip, I had talked him into seeing a doctor. The doctor had very successfully dealt with the problem, but the length of the needle that was applied to Chris’ rear-end grew as the story was repeated during the trip. Now, 3 years later, it went for the record of largest injection needle on the planet. It was great to see him again. He also says hello to Cliff & Ian.

Crassulady, whom I had met earlier at the Huntington was there as well and was disappointed that I would not be a guest at her house. I explained that hotels had been booked and paid for, so, not this time. She recognised Angie from pictures in the talk as a person she had travelled with on one of Warren Wither’s Continental Coach trips! She says a big hello!

There must have been some 60 members present – more like a UK convention than a branch talk. Several people knew me from the Copiapoathon Diaries and wanted to join me on future trips in South America. We’ll see. I’ll check with Graham Charles and Guillermo Rivera how much they charge, as I would not want to undercut my friends 🙂

I received a number of very complimentary remarks after the talk, so have raised my hero status another few notches. Must get a larger hat 🙂

Then the journey home – tired after the talk and a full day, on to Highway 101. I had memorised the names of the exits leading up to the one I had to take to get to the motel, but as they had still not appeared half an hour after I had joined 101, I decided it was wise to retrace my steps. No problem. Back to the venue for the talk, now in complete darkness with everybody gone home. No problem, found a nice place to park along the road, study the minimalist map that Eunice had kindly printed off for me. Kicked myself, as I seemed to have done everything right, so must have missed an exit. The problem lies in driving in a river of steel at 65+ mph, with everybody apparently on full main beam, 7 lanes + each way in many places, but continually changing that number as junctions come and go. Loads of roadside information, so how could I get lost? Although the names were familiar, from films, songs, books etc, I have no idea about their geographical relationship. I had remembered 3 exit names off 101 and would use these to count down to the one I needed to take. Here we go again.

No good, the first 2 exit names did not match my memorised names. Then it dawned on me: I was on the right road, but travelling in the wrong direction! Fellow travellers, you have been warned! Convinced that I was now on the right track, I put my theory to the test and to my great relief, there were the names I had memorised, there was my exit and eventually, there was the extremely welcoming sign of Motel 6. I was pleased to find that the wifi connection is free, but disappointed to note that so far I can’t make a connection so that I’ll have to walk the laptop over to outside reception and see if the signal is any better there. I have seen other guests do that. I’d rather pay and not have to go through this procedure. Angie, I’ll pass on our daily chat until I get to Motel 6 in San Diego on Friday night.

The other snag today was that the Society’s treasurer wanted my name to put on the cheque that he was going to give me. I explained the problem of not having a US bank a/c. Heads were scratched. Well done Eunice for anticipating this at the Long Beach meeting.

Fortunately, one of the officers, Matt, is coming to the San Diego meeting on Saturday and will bring the cash with him, so that I’ll leave the US the next day with a pocket full of Dollars. I’ll email Mark to warn him that I need cash, not cheques.

So all’s well that ends well. I actually feel quite chuffed to have gotten out of this pickle by keeping my head. I did have Plan B – find a sign to a place I knew, even if it had been San Diego, and drive until day light if need be to find the Motel 6 there. Having devised my back up plan, I could then get on with a calm search.

Now the next challenge – getting this message out. If you are reading this, I succeeded!

Wednesday, 5 March 2008 – Vista Nurseries etc & back to Torrey Pines

Greetings from Room 268 (and not 286 as reported yesterday – should I join DNA – the National Dislexic’s Association now?)

Eunice arrived promptly at 8 and had promised to take me to a Mimies for breakfast, so as to avoid another Dennys. A great experience, with a crab & avocado omelette, fruit salad, and toast, coffee & orange juice at only a few dollars more than Dennys (although the latter has convenience in its favour). ‘Have you been here before?’ was the question from the waitress. ‘No’, I replied, ‘I’m visiting, from the UK’ – ‘Awesome!’ she responded, as only Californians know how. As a nice surprise during breakfast, she brought a box with 4 different muffins as a present for me to remember my first visit to Mimies! Eunice says it’s because the English accent reminds people of James Bond – shaken, not stirred. I explained that the American accent in the UK results into a general ‘Oh, no, Yanks!’ response. You just don’t get that kind of service at your average English eatery!! I asked if there were plans to open up a chain of Mimies in Baja within the next 3 weeks. Unfortunately not, although Eunice could have put in their IT network at a modest discount in return for free quality coffee during the trip.

We were early for our meeting with Mark Fryer at C&Js at 11, so stopped by Rainbow Books to meet Jerry (who runs the nursery) and Chuck, who runs the book store, at least those bits that did not move to Tucson. I was asked to sign a copy of the Grantham / Klaassen masterpiece, which, he informed me, did not sell very well in the US. ‘Not surprised’ I said, ‘it was written to a set of instructions from the publisher for a UK audience.’ I bit my tongue, so as not to ask ‘And what did you ever write that sold better?’

Our visit to Rainbow had now made us late for C&J’s, where Mark was waiting for us. He had not been back for a while and was visibly upset on the things that should have been but had not been done since he had left some 8 weeks ago. These plants were part of his family, he had cared for them for a number of years and now the quality of that care had gone down hill. I sympathised and thought of Holly Gate.

I found that I took remarkably few pictures, but that was because I was distracted by great chat. Hope Eunice made up for it and has a picture that Mark & I had discussed in Cactus_Study some 4 years ago – 4 plants raised from seed that had come in with some Discocactus (ex-habitat?) plants and which had grown into plants looking like Uebelmannia but with white Discocactus flowers. I had seen this plant earlier at Juergen Menzel’s. I believe Marlon is aware, but should really go and take a look himself sometime.

I was also amazed to see so many plants being grown in cold frames, raised on concrete blocks and with the bottom made out of slats to allow the air to circulate freely. Worked great in Vista! As I took some pictures of these frames surrounded by trees I noticed that the trees were actually 20 ft+ tall tree-Aloes. Mark tells me that it only took some 15 years to reach this size. Growing most cactus & succulents really doesn’t seem to be a challenge in California.

From C&J’s it was possible to see the junction that lead to Steve Hammer’s nursery. His phone was engaged, which means that he was in, but working in his greenhouses, so he was our next visit. Steve is great, as those who have seen his lectures in the UK will know. He really knows how to raise your interest for the plants that he talks about – great enthusiasm. And that is what he is like when he is at home between his plants. He showed Eunice a Lithops hybrid that carries her name and seems to be doing quite a bit of hybrid crosses experiments. This seems one way to distract ‘serious collectors’ from their obsession with ex-habitat plants and so, should be encouraged, although I’ll probably keep up my fascination with cacti in habitat, but without the need to own them, in the UK. Pictures are just fine by me.

I reminded Eunice that after my visit to Torrey Pines State Reserve ‘proper’ she wanted to go there too. I remembered Dudleya brevifolia from my list of plants that I learned I had missed yesterday, so asked a Ranger we met in the visitor’s car park. We were directed down the closed road to the Golf Course and to take a ‘broken path’ to the area where small round ferric/ ferrous pebbles littered the ground, just as at the Glider Club location we had visited earlier in the week. We followed the road as instructed, saw an area that fitted the description and walked a short distance along a sort-of path (Broken path?) and almost immediately found small Dudleya that looked as though the name ‘brevifolia‘ was appropriate. The Dudleya book I have has no picture of the plants. The Ranger had indicated that plants were little more than an inch tall, and these plants were just over that size, but they did look very much like small D. lanceolata. My suspicions grew stronger when, among the bushes, we found larger plants, straight D. lanceolata?

Our camera snapping was interrupted by another Ranger, who told us that we were on land that was closed to the public to allow plants to recover. We apologised and asked where we might find the plants that we were looking for, as obviously his colleague who had directed us here, had been unaware that it was out-of-bounds. Our new ‘friend’ admitted that he was in charge of toilets and making sure to draw visitors attention to breaking park rules – he knew nothing about plants. Never mind, we walked further along the paved road and just as we were thinking about going back (the sun was getting low in the sky and sets quickly in California) we found a sign pointing to Broken Hill Trail. So we had been in the wrong place. Sorry Mr Ranger.

The track was said to be only 0.5 miles long (I think it was more) and went through thick scrub. There were some Dudleya at the feet of the shrubs, but light was now so bad that plants growing underneath the shrubs were not photographable without a tripod (left in the UK in my case, at Long Beach in Eunice’s house). Eunice will have to go back later in the year, as we believe the plants are so small that they are best spotted when they are in flower.  We took some nice sunset pictures through the pine trees and fought or way through the rush hour traffic back to Carlsbad Village Drive, from where Eunice still had a 101 mile journey to L.A.

I have since had a look through my Dudleya book, but, as mentioned before, it has no picture of D. brevifolia, which is placed in Genus Hasseanthus in Paul Thomson’s classification system (regarded as a subgenus by others).
Amazing how tiring all this plant photography is.

Tuesday, 4 March 2008 – Torrey Pines State Reserve

Smooth Jazz FM was playing a track of Courtney Pine’s album ‘Within The Realms of Our Dreams’ , strangely appropriate for my visit to the Torrey Pine State Reserve.

The TPSR ‘proper’ was great. First I parked at the bottom, just after you pay your $8 to get a car in. I took some pictures at sea level, then walked up the hill, dodging joggers and cyclists as they tried to out-do each other. It did not take long to spot D. edulis and D. lanceolata – same as yesterday. Some joggers looked a bit strange at the person who kept stopping to take pictures, apparently of weeds growing by the side of the road. ‘Will never get fit that way!’ I could see them think (‘Thought baloons’ coming out of people’s heads were invented by Disney in California, right?).

Got to the first (Guy Fleming) Trail which is said to be a 2/3 mile loop, the easiest trail. It took me 45 minutes to complete, due to frequent picture stops (to take 114 pictures). As the plants were the same as yesterday, I enjoyed taking pictures, looking for that extra special shot. I met a volunteer who was busy pulling out ‘exotic weeds’ and who was glad for a chat. The weed was an invasive grass from South Africa that was competing with the native flora and winning. She had left a Dudleya and asked her its name. ‘Dudleya lanceolata’, she said, confirming our ID yesterday. I explained my interest in cacti & other succulents. Helpfully she said there was a second Dudleya on the trail: ‘Ladyfingers’ aka D. edulis. The native Americans who used to live here, the Kumeyaay, used to eat its leaves in a salad. The Opuntia is O. littoralis, the cholla is C. prolifera, the Yucca (Same as I saw last Friday, in flower, on the way to Julian) is Y. schidigera and the other I had already recognised as Y. whipplei and of course, the Pine trees are Pinus torreyana, the Torrey Pine. Very useful information.

All were spotted and photographed as well as the spectacular scenery. Along most of the loop, the path was roped off, as they were making efforts to let the plants regenerate after removing the exotic weeds. As a result, I was limited to taking pictures from the path, because as you all know, I always do as I’m told. As the path edged along the cliffs overlooking the Ocean, Ferocactus viridescens also appeared on the scene, but the plants seen yesterday were in better shape and made better photo subjects. Agave shawii was also there but it was a much darker form than Alain & I had seen in Baja in February. I wonder how many variety and forms exist or if this is just an environmental phenomenon.

Having completed the loops, I walked back down hill and then drove up hill and parked in the visitor’s centre. Here all the plants listed above were found growing with labels next to them. At the visitors’ centre, I bought the booklet dedicated to the park (quite old, with B&W pictures), a booklet entitled ‘Wildflowers of the Guy Fleming Trail (although the lady who served me suggested that the Wildflower book of California Natives was much better, but at four times the price) and a fold up chart ‘Flowering Plants of Torrey Pines State Reserve’.  Now that I’m back in Room 286, (no, not in the local mental hospital) I read that I should also have seen, but missed Dudleya pulverulenta, Bergerocactus emoryi, Mammillaria dioica and Opuntia occidentalis. Never mind, I saw them already in February and the park is large, so these plants may have occurred in places that today were not accessible. I’ll need to look up two Dudleya missed that we didn’t see before: D. brevifolia and D. variegata – perhaps these are no longer recognised, or perhaps I just did not see or recognise them.

I got ‘home’ around 5 p.m. and promptly fell asleep – must be all that healthy sea air.

Life continues to be great – I feel guilty at times that I’m enjoying myself so much and fall asleep with a smile on my face – that’s another day that they can’t take away from me!

Monday, 3 March 2008 – Torrey Pine State Reserve

Eunice arrived punctual as ever for today’s outing to nearby Torrey Pine State Reserve where she knew of some Dudleya growing in nature. It turned out that this location was not necessarily in the State Reserve, but virtually next door, near some University of California buildings. I’ll put the GPS coordinates in Google Earth later to get an exact position. As we left the car park, we almost immediately stepped on our first Dudleya.

I’d say we found a total of 3 species in total during our 2:30 hour stay and I’ll check the Dudleya book for pictures of plants that look like what we saw and are reported from where we saw it.  Eunice might be kind enough to confirm or correct these names (she did tell me some names while we were out in the field, but with my memory, they could have been John, Fred & Charlie) Essentially, the three forms / taxa were:

• Long cylindrical leaves pointing upwards, probably D. edulis
• Broad leaves, best farina (white powder) of the 3, the name D. pulverulenta might fit. These make the biggest rosettes of the three
• Lanceolate leaves, so the name D. lanceolata is perhaps too obvious, but is reported (‘Ponto Form’) from Dan Diego County, which is where we were, but which is probably the size of Wiltshire – check page 143, plate 26:2, Eunice.

It’s quite refreshing to be searching for something that is utterly new to me. I can make the wildest suggestions (like D. lanceolata looks like an intermediate / hybrid between the other two) as I don’t need to pretend that I know better.

So, a whole day of looking at ‘large lettuces and other vegetables? Well, no, There were a lot of ‘Californian natives’ (Eunice’s pet word for local weeds) that were in flower and, due to the fact that they were new to me, were of interest – some would make great plants in UK gardens, if they could survive in our climate. And some may not be native at all, or at least not to California, such as Carpobrotus chilensis, Mesembryanthemum  crystallinum that seem to appear in any Mediterranean climate zone.

Throughout our walk, Eunice kept on referring to a special treat that she was saving up for me. Probably an Agave or Yucca, I thought as these surpass her passion for Dudleya. I had spotted a cholla (Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa) and Opuntia littoralis, but no Agavaceae. Then came the surprise, on a more badly eroded slope with rocks suggesting ferric or ferrous deposits: Ferocactus viridescens. Lots of plants in excellent health after recent rains, but no signs of buds. One fruit spotted and seed harvested. (Ian note). So next I’ll need to check if Ferocactus gets its name from growing on ferric or ferrous soils. Ian, does Uncle John P’s book suggest an origin for the name? I had previously thought it was derived from ‘ferocious’, i.e. heavily spined.

So the next challenge was to find the best, most photogenic plants, preferably growing together. I’ll upload the best to flickr later, if my eyes stay open long enough.

Next we went to visit the collection and nursery of Jürgen Menzel, formerly from Germany, but probably as long in the US as I have been in the UK. He still seemed to be in touch with many German growers, such as Ernst Speck and Köhres and knew most of the Austrians I mentioned. His collection is not unlike Alan Pocock’s, with lots of weird, rare and wonderful stuff. Novelties included were Mam. perez-de-la-rosa var. andersonii, with straight spines; two taxa from the Galapagos islands (if only I had a memory or could have taken pictures of the labels); a weird cactus with the body of Arrojadoa (Floribunda) bahiensis, but the flower bud of a Discocactus that, I’m told, also flowers white, opens at night and fills the tunnel with a strong perfume; a new subspecies of an Echinocereus (I forgot to note the name) and the results of crosses of straight Astrophytum asterias and A. caput-medusae. Jürgen was instrumental in assisting a Mexican in distributing A. caput-medusae seed around the world around 2004, from which we now benefit at ELK. All these hybrid plants looked like A. superkabuto’s but not the most extreme attractive ones. So the A. asterias genes seem to be the dominant ones – the ‘foreign’ pollen might even have induced self pollination, but the markings were different from those from a control batch of A. asterias seedlings.

We had some great cactus-chat while looking at the plants. Eunice could not help but buy plants and everyone was happy by the time we left to do battle with rush hour traffic.

We ended up at a Panera (‘chain of Bread bakery-cafes bring the tradition of freshly baked artisan bread to neighborhoods in cities throughout the country’) in Carlsbad, because they do healthy food, good coffee and free internet access. Sadly the chain does not extend into Baja. The internet connection played up and an email I had written was lost, but I did manage to down load my pictures.

Next we went to a huge sports shop where my Maestro debit card was rejected, so that Cliff now owes Eunice US$ 24.97 (down from $29.99) for a Queen size (75x58x9″) airbed  in addition to humble apologies for past comments made on a similar subject. We went for the model that takes up to 600 lbs, but it has a repair kit included just in case. Like most things on sale here, it was made in China.

That was about as much excitement as I could stand for one day.

Tomorrow I might make another drive along the coast and this time use the official entrance to the Torrey Pine State Reserve, after all, I never took a picture of the famous rare Pine of the same name that grows there, and somebody at a future presentation is bound to ask ….

Wednesday, Mark Fryer is coming up from San Diego to show me around C&J’s and Grigsby and who knows what else, so life is still good in Toy Town.