Opuntia basilaris var. treleasei

Volume 8 July 2005 Number 7

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE BAKERSFIELD CACTUS & SUCCULENT SOCIETY

This Month's Program

Echinocereus Hybridsin the Jarillo Mts.presented by Gary Duke

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Monthly MeetingTuesday, July 12Olive Drive Church,

5500 Olive driveat 6:30 PM

(West of 99 freewayon corner of Olive drive &

Victor street)

Volume 8 Number 7

July 2005

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We all met out at the Cal State Environmental Studies Area for our June-Potluck-in-the-Garden. About 30 of us were there, including 2 new members and several guests. Our new members are: Denis & Annie Kearns and Eugenia Strouss. Everyone enjoyed the great food and company. After dinner, Vonne spoke about upcoming events--especially the Show and Sale in October. It was reported that we made about $700 at the yard sale. A meeting of interested Show and Sale people was announced. Then we had the annual club photo taken and a brief tour of the garden was given by Linda and Stephen. It was a fun time for everyone.

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The Cactus Patch is the official publication of the Bakersfield Cactus & Succulent Society (BCSS) of Bakersfield, California. Meetings are held on the second Tuesday of each month at the times and places noted within. GUEST ARE ALWAYS WELCOME

2005 Officers

President – Vonne ZdenekVice-President – Bonnie East

Treasurer - Maynard MoeSecretary – Les Oxford

Editors - Stephen Cooley Linda Cooley

2005 Directors

CSSA Representative - openPast President – Matt Ekegren

2005 Chairpersons

Hospitality - Bill McDonaldLibrarian – James Parker

Field Trips – Lynn McDonaldHistorian – open

Show & Sale – Maynard Moe

Material in The Cactus Patch may be reprinted by non-profit organizations (unless such permission is expressly denied in a note accompanying the material) provided that the proper credit is given to the BCSS & the author and that one copy of the publication containing the reprinted material is sent to the editor. Reproduction in whole or part by any other organization without the permission of the BCSS editor is prohibited. Contact thecactuspatch@bak.rr.com

BCSS BOARD MEETING:JUNE 28TH 2005

A BCSS board meeting was held at Barnes &n Noble on June 28th 2005 and those in presence were Maynard Moe, Bonnie East and Les Oxford. Several board members were out of town.

Our next meeting will be on July 12th at Olive Drive Church starting at 6:30pm.

A presentation on Echinocereus hybrids from the Jarillo Mountains will be given by Gary Duke.

Our annual meeting in August will be at The Cactus Valley Restaurant at 6:30pm.

At the September meeting, bring plants and pots for staging.

Anyone interested in a field trip of any sort, please make your suggestions at our July meeting.

In October we will have our ANNUAL SHOW & SALE at the East Hills Shopping Mall.

Our next board meeting will be at Barnes & Noble on July 26th at 7PM.

Les Oxford, Secretary

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Plant of the MonthNotes on Echinocereus

by L. M. Moe(reprinted from the May 2003 )

The plant of the month for July is Echinocereus, a large genus which contains some of the most popular smaller North American cacti. The

first Echinocereus was described by George Engelmann in

1848. He derived the name from "echinos", Greek for hedgehog or sea urchin, and "cereus", Latin for candle. The Cactus Family (2001),

by E. A. Anderson, lists about 60 species from the southern U.S. and

Mexico. There are two species in the Mojave Desert of California - E.

engelmannii (California Hedgehog Cactus) and E. triglochidiatus (Mojave

Claret Cup Cactus).These beautiful Echinocereus cacti come in a wide range of

shapes and colors. Some species form round, spiny mounds (thus the common name "Hedgehog"), while others develop thin, rambling stems. The flower buds of these succulents form inside the stems, bursting out near the stem tips in late spring and early summer. Large flowers open completely in full sun and come in an array of colors such as yellow, orange, red, pink, purple and white.

These cacti are suitable for growing in containers in a greenhouse, on a patio or as landscape plants in regions where the minimum temperature does not fall much below freezing. Though they flower best if kept at a temperature of about 50º F in the winter, some species (e.g., E. engelmannii) can survive light frost.

A good website for more information and photographs is:www.desert-tropicals.com/Plants/Cactaceae/Echinocereus.html.

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Echinocereus Hybrids in the Jarillo Mts.presented by Gary Duke

This month’s guest speaker is Gary Duke from Huntington Beach, CA. Gary gave a presentation to our Club in 2003 on Diversity and Density in the Northern Chihauhau Desert. He talked about many species of cactus and succulents in and around White Sands National Monument, New Mexico.

This time Gary will take us back to the same general area of southeast New Mexico called the Jarilla Mountains. His program will cover a phenomenon of naturally occurring hybrids of Echinocereus species of cactus that do not occur anywhere else in the world.

This should prove to be an interesting journey and one that could spark personal interest to going to this area of New Mexico to see it for oneself. Perhaps next spring would be a time to consider such a trip, you never know.

Until we meet again, Vice-prez Bonnie.

THE SUCCULENT GARDEN AT CAL STATEGarden Journal, June 2005

Our work in the garden has reached its aestivation stage. We will let the garden grow unhindered until cooler weather arrives in the fall. There

are a few projects that will be worked on during the summer, including installing a temporary drip system and making labels for the plants.

These will not require too much extra help, so Stephen and I will work on them as time permits. We will resume BIG projects in the fall, probably

after the Show and Sale. These projects might include: walkways, rock acquisition and placement, relocation of plants, retaining walls, shade structures, kiosk building and painting, and of course, weeding! Thanks for all the help this past winter and spring--we got a lot accomplished!

Linda Cooley6

A BUSY INTERLUDEA Letter From Bruce

The instant we returned from the 9th

Millennium Seed Bank Trip on 2nd May I was plunged right back into Gaborone life. Polly was just

typing out a note to leave to tell me there was an art opening at the museum at 6:30. I just had time for a bath and supper and then it was off to the museum for an exhibit on Russia's role in WWII. All "Grand & Glorious" stuff. They also had some veterans who had served from Botswana. I was glad when the Minister of Labour & Home Affairs (himself a Major-General) put in a word for the value of peace.

Top that one? Next evening the film club showed "Triumph of Will", a documentary on Adolph Hitler's moment of "fame". What was frightening was how reasonable the guy sounded! Although this came a week after the last film of the German Film Festival, it was not sponsored by Germany (for obvious reasons). It was actually a rather boring propaganda film, but worth seeing for its historicity.

On Sunday 8th May we returned to Good Hope where Polly ran another quilting session and I returned to Kgoro Pan to collect plants. I located some plants of Hypoxis which is endangered because it is used to boost the immune system and is widely available in South African muti (medicine) markets as the "African potato". I have argued that it probably won't help fight AIDs since HIV has already compromised the immune system, but this is not easily accepted. I also found

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JULY’S PROGRAM

a plant of Kedrostis crassirostrata in fruit. This is a wild cucumber with a spherical caudex. Locally it is eaten as "spinach". I also found that Piaranthus (= Huerniopsis) is a carrion flower with an edible stem. Polly was happy to find that some of her group had shown initiative in making quilts on their own.

On Sat. 14th May the Bird Club had its annual general meeting outdoors at the new office. The speaker from South Africa, W. Tarboton, presented his work on Dragonflies and Damselflies. He said its like bird watching on a small scale. His pictures are excellent and are all available in two volumes. Fortunately the business and speech came first. While we were eating an excellent dinner we had a most unseasonable rain.

On Tues. 17th May we had speeches at the museum on bridging cultural gaps to start off the celebration of International Museums Day. I spoke on the gap between traditional and hospital-based medicines. Next day we had a costume parade (I wore my Western suit, boots and bolo tie), listened to speeches, songs, bands, etc. and opened an exhibit on the work of the museum. I was asked to present a traditional tale from California, so I sang "Clementine".

On the 24th Polly and I had lunch south of town at a new "Indigenous Plant Nursery". Although the idea is good (and it does keep people employed) the plants are mainly South African and not from Botswana. That evening I joined a brave few to start a "Really Terrible Orchestra". It is sponsored by the author Alexander McCall Smith who is a member of a similar group in Scotland. There is debate as to whether we can live down to the name. Next Day Polly's Book Club met at our house for supper and the monthly book exchange.

On the 5th of June we went south to the vulture colony with the bird club and had breakfast at the nearby "Orchard Tea Garden". At the same time, World Environment Day was celebrated at Letlekeng which is NW of Gaborone. The museum exhibit won first prize. As an insult to the environment, there was an off-road race that tore up the place. Guess which event got the greatest attention?

My sister Anne arrived from Bakersfield on the 13th of June and we will begin a real marathon next week. It might be Interesting to get her input on goings on here.

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I have just received two books which might be of interest. The first is Plants of the Nyika Plateau, John Burrows and Christopher Willis eds., 2005 (SABONET Report 31, Pretoria). The Nyika is a high plateau in the north of Malawi. It is a mix of grassland and montane forest which is not rich in succulents. It does have the southernmost stand of Euphorbia ampliphylla, a succulent tree which grows up to 30 m (100 ft). There are also seven species of Crassula, two of Kalanchoe, four Aloes, one Bulbine, five Peperomias, a couple of giant Lobelias, 26 species of Plectranthus, one Tetradenia, and a lot of interesting non-succulents. There are good line drawings and some color photos (a few mine). As well as describing the plants, the book has short bibliographies on collectors (including me) and descriptions of the plateau in general. The book ends with good satellite photos. It is a real bargain at R150 (about $25).

The other book is the long awaited Preliminary Checklist of the Plants of Botswana by Moffat Setshogo 2005 (SABONET Report 37, Pretoria). I edited it over a year ago and don't know why it took so long to get printed. Moffat did take the suggestion to put all plants without known Botswana specimens in an appendix. (But he did include them in the main list as well by adding a “?” to each.) The only illustrations are a few cover photos and it is mainly a dull list with a few symbols to indicate introduced plants, succulents etc. The herbaria where specimens

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Kedrostis crassirostrata

may be found are also listed for each species. It is an improvement on previous listings in that collections outside Botswana were consulted. Also, it lists non-flowering plants.

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All of Bruce’s letters can be viewedon website:

www.bakersfieldcactus.org/thecactuspatch/bruce/bruce.html

SHOW & SALE COMMITTEE MEETING:JUNE 15TH 2005

The Show & Sale Committee met at Barnes and Noble, in attendance were Sydney & Jack, Vonne, Maynard, Ed, and Stephen (Bonnie couldn’t make it but sent along some ideas).

Sydney suggested buying a ‘real nice’ landscape plant that could be given as a door prize. Upon further discussion it was thought that we could pot one of the large Echinopsis from the ESA garden in a nice pot as the door prize. We would also try to get the winner to come to a meeting to claim the prize.

Sydney also mentioned that Karen Scott from Desert Imagedss in Ojai was willing to come and sale some of her pots and plants.

It was noted that Woody will be in Argentina, but would see that his sale plants would be at the Show. Lee Eby will be unable to attend and perhaps we could go to his nursery and pick up some plants to sale.

An effort needs to be made to see that our members are not shy about bringing plants to show.

Our education posters need to be updated.We were unable to decide whether we should continue the

kids art contest (it takes a lot of volunteer hours to keep it going)A Show & Sale publicity flyer needs to be made.

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The 2005 CSSA Show & Saleand the Huntington Gardens

The annual CSSA Show & Sale was held this 4th of July weekend at the Huntington Library and Gardens. Maynard and I went down once again to see all the plants (that includes those in the show, for sale, and in the garden). While there, we ran into some other BCSS members: Steve Crippen, Gwen Barnes, Vonne Zdenek, Mickey McGuire, Frank Melvin, and of course Woody Minnich was there showing and selling plants.

The first thing we did was peruse the many tables of plants and pots for sale. It was our impression that this year’s sale plants were conspicuously missing a lot of cacti and they seemed to be mostly composed of the more common species/hybrids. Both Maynard and I came home without purchasing a plant (I did buy two nice pots from Joe Wujick).

The show also was a bit of a disappointment, it seemed to be small compared to other years. None of the tables were crowded with show plants. In previous years the inside was filled with succulents and caudiciforms and the outside patio was filled with Cacti. The patio was not used this year. Could the three day weekend be to blame? Still, the plants were spectacular and many of the ‘big name’ owners were represented.

The Huntington garden was as impressive as always. After lunch, we walked around and stumbled upon three large Bottle

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Adromischus marianae var herrei

Trees (Brachychton rupestris) in the Australian section. A small one of these has been planted in the Succulent Garden at Cal State. After wandering through the Australian, Subtropical and Jungle sections we found ourselves at the bottom of the desert garden.

If any of you reading this have not been to the Huntington desert garden then you should go! You won’t soon forget it.

Since my last visit some new trails have been opened up, making it a bit longer of a walk, but definitely worth it. Once again we marveled at all the huge specimens of cacti and succulents – even though they were the same ones we marveled at the last time we were here.

We finished our tour by discovering two trees that were hiding in plain sight. They stand alone in a grassy area just inside the entrance to the garden and look like two very large Cow-Itch trees (Lagunaria – I know that most of you don’t recognize Lagunaria, but that’s what it looked like to me. I guess they might be mistaken for Alder trees as well). A few large balls at the tips of the high branches attracted my attention and when we walked over to read the sign we found that the tree was Agathis robusta, a very odd conifer from Australia. The large balls were cones, not looking quite like pine cones, but cones all the same.

Stephen Cooley

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PLEASE WELCOME OUR NEW MEMBERS(and add their names to your roster)

Denis & Annie Kearns Eugenia Strouss

--------------------------Perry Aminian, a devoted plant lover & member of many local gardening clubs, has passed away. Lynn has sent a card from our club.

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Membership in the Bakersfield Cactus & Succulent Society costs $10 per year for an individual and only $15 a year for a family. This extraordinarily reasonable price not only includes twelve issues of but entitles you to participate in club field trips to far-off (out-of-town) and exotic places (more exotic than Bakersfield). You will also receive a nifty name tag that will be your ticket to the members only plant raffle held every meeting featuring the best plant from the raffle table! All this is in addition to the wonderful programs and people at the meetings. To become a member contact:

Maynard Moe, treasurerLithops44@bak.rr.com

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Be Sure To Check Us OutOn The Web At:

www.BakersfieldCactus.org

The desert garden

To have your article printed inget in touch with:

Stephen Cooley, editor Linda Cooley, editorthecactuspatch@bak.rr.com

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July 12 BCSS Meeting 6:30 pm Olive Dr. Church, 5500 Olive Dr.SPEAKER: Gary DukePROGRAM: Echinocereus hybrids in the Jarillo Mts.

July 26 BCSS Executive meeting, Barnes & Noble 7pmAugust 10 BCSS Meeting 6:30 pm The Cactus Valley RestaurantSept 13 BCSS Meeting 6:30 pm Olive Dr. Church, 5500 Olive Dr.October 8-9 Annual BCSS Show & Sale. East Hills Mall

July 30-31 Los Angeles C&SS Show & Sale. Sepulveda Garden Center, 16633 Magnolia Blvd, Encino (101 Fwy & Hayvenhurst) Sat. 9-5, Sun 9-4 Info: Artie

July 30-31 San Fernando Valley Bromeliad Society Show & Sale. See above for times & place. Info: Bryan Chan

Aug 5-11 CSSA Biennial Convention. Scottsdale Plaza Resort, Phoenix.

Aug 20-21 20th Intercity Show & Sale. Los Angeles Arboretum. 9am-5pm

Sept 3 Huntington Symposium, Huntington Botanical GardensOct 15-16 San Gabriel Valley C&SS Winter Show & Sale, LA

Arboretum

contact the editors (page 14) for more information

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UPCOMING EVENTS