Mexico Field Trip

Day 4 – February 17^th, 2005

 

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We were up at 6am with breakfast by 7, and on the road with luggage from our hotel in Puebla by 7:30. The Hotel Real de Puebla was a relatively modern, Best Western branded, hotel, with a nice bar, but the evening meal wasn’t great. It was very much a tourist / package holiday hotel.

 

Getting out of Puebla was interesting, as road signs for Oaxaca just didn’t seem to exist. However, after reaching the ring road and going east we reached a roundabout with a huge fountain, and that we saw eventually was the right road!

 

We took a right turn to Tepeyahualco just after San Hipolito, we stopped and looked for plants. We scoured first the hillside to the left of our approach direction, and then the right. We found:

 

PICT0925         -           Stenocereus stellatus (to the right of Norbert)

PICT0926-9      -           Mammillaria casoi (?) or carnea?

PICT0930         -           Annie and Alain on the hillside

PICT0931         -           Ferocactus recurvus

PICT0932-4      -           Ferocactus robustus

PICT0935         -           Stenocereus sp?

PICT0936         -           Mammillaria carnea

PICT0937         -           Stenocereus stellatus

PICT0939         -           Ferocactus recurvus

PICT0940         -           Buds on tree

PICT0941         -           View across hillside

PICT0942,4      -           Coryphantha pallida

PICT0945-6      -           Mammillaria sp (first picture with stick insect!)

PICT0948-9      -           Mammillaria carnea

PICT0950         -           Cissus tuberosus

PICT0951         -           Agave sp.

PICT0952         -           Stenocactus sp.

PICT0953         -           Mammillaria carnea?

PICT0955-58    -           Mammillaria carnea forms

PICT0959-61    -           Mammillaria mystax forms

PICT0962         -           Hillside with Yuccas and others.

PICT0963         -           Pachycereus marginatus

PICT0964-6      -           Mammillaria carnea

PICT0968-70    -           Myrtillocactus geometrizans (and flowers)

PICT0971         -           Agave gilbeyi

PICT0972         -           Ferocactus recurvus

PICT0973-4      -           Mammillaria carnea form

PICT0975         -           looking across to the first hillside and the shrine beside the road.

PICT0977         -           Neobuxbaumia mezcalaensis

PICT0978-80    -           Mammillaria carnea forms, variable spination.

 

A few miles further on, in fact the second right turn, we made a sharp right onto a dusty track turn, after we first saw the Neobuxbaumia “forests”. .This eventually became our lunch break as well, but for now we were looking for new plants – and found a number.

 

PICT0981         -           Neobuxbaumia mescalaensis

PICT0982         -           Opuntia tuna?

PICT0983-4      -           Mammillaria haageana / elegans

PICT0987         -           Mammillaria haageana / elegans

PICT0989-90    -           Mammillaria haageana / elegans

PICT0992-5      -           Mammillaria haageana / elegans

PICT0996         -           Agave verschaffeldtii

PICT1000         -           Bursera sp.

PICT1003         -           Mammillaria haageana / elegans

PICT1004         -           Tillandsia sp.

PICT1005-8      -           an old Mammillaria haageana / elegans

PICT1009         -           back up the dusty road

PICT1010         -           Bursera sp.

PICT1011         -           Last view of the track and hillside

 

We retraced our route, through Malcaza and Tepayuhualco, and took the right on Mex 150 to Tehuacan. After Km 64 marker on the way to Tehuacan, we took a dust track on the left, after Alseseca, where again we found Mammillaria haageana / elegans:

 

PICT1012         -           A view of the shack that we passed, between the cars and the hillside

PICT1013         -           Two different Coryphanthas – pallida group on the left and an “as yet” unidentified

                                    Plant. (Note 1)

PICT1014         -           Coryphantha pallida

PICT1015-6      -           Mammillaria haageana / elegans at this site.

PICT1017         -           A view back down the hillside towards the cars.

 

 

And then on towards Tehuacan, until we reached the town of Cacaloapan, where we too a right turn down a side street opposite a garage, and worked our way around the tracks until we passed the church and cemetery on our left and followed the track up the hill, past the new houses. The plants we found there were:

 

PICT1018-21    -           Mammillaria sphacelata

PICT1022         -           Echinocactus grandis

PICT1023         -           Mammillaria carnea

PICT1024         -           Mammillaria sphacelata

PICT1025         -           Echinocactus grandis

PICT1026-7      -           Mammillaria pectinifera

PICT1028         -           View from hillside looking towards new houses

PICT1029         -           Mammillaria sphacelata flower

PICT1030         -           Mammillaria haageana / elegans – very close spined form.

PICT1032         -           The terrain where M. pectinifera lives.

 

Sadly at this stage it became clear when we got back to the vehicles that Madeleine had taken a fall and her wrist was damaged. So we then made for our hotel in Tehuacan, and Norbert and Pierre took Madeleine to the hospital / clinic where she needed a general anaesthetic to have it set and plastered.

 

 

Note 1 – this “unidentified Coryphantha is most likely to be Coryphantha calipensis, now defined as a subspecies or variety of Coryphantha pallida. They certainly are rather different in form! Added 16/5/05

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