AUGUST 2017 STOCKTON CACTUS & SUCCULENT SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

Transcription

1 STOCKTON CACTUS & SUCCULENT SOCIETY NEWSLETTER AUGUST 2017 MEETINGS: Fourth Thursday each month, 7:00 p.m. * Unless otherwise noted WHERE: San Joaquin County Building 2707 Transworld Drive Stockton, California *NEXT MEETING: Thursday, August 24 th, 2017 PRE MEETING DINNER: Denny s Restaurant Arch Road location 5:30 p.m. STOCKTON CACTUS & SUCCULENT SOCIETY C/O BRIAN POOT 5617 ANADA COURT SALIDA, CA Aeonium 'Sunburst' crest

2 2017 BOARD: President: Lesley Slayter (209) Vice President: Brian Poot (209) Treasurer: Roelyn Poot (209) Secretary: Faye Sutton (209) Board Members: Jerry Slayter, Bill Poot & JD Wikert Newsletter: Brian Poot (209) BOARD MEETINGS: Please note, board meetings will now be held the second Wednesday of each month, at 7:00 p.m., except in December, or if that date conflicts with something else. Anyone is welcome to attend, but please call first to let them know you will be coming to make sure of the date. Thanks! We can always use new ideas & opinions for the club, as well as help with behind the scenes stuff. If you are interested, please come to a board meeting. Thx! MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION: Individual $20/yr Family $25/yr Contributing $35/yr Patron $50/yr All dues should be sent to the treasurer before the February general meeting. Membership runs January-December. Complimentary Jan. & Feb. issue if unpaid. CALENDAR: August 9 th - Board Meeting at the Poot s 7:00 p.m. 24 th - General Meeting 7:00pm: JD Wikert - "Succulents: What you need to know about successful succulent culture" September 13 th - Board Meeting at the Poot s 7:00 p.m. 28 th - General Meeting 7:00pm: Country Store October 11 th - Board Meeting at the Poot s 7:00 p.m. 24 th - General Meeting 7:00pm: Woody Minnich OTHER UPCOMING EVENTS: (not club related) SUNSHINE REPORT: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to: Roelyn Poot, Lesley Slayter, Maria Clausing, Troy McQueen Jr., Carol Swope & Earl Lindgren.

3 THIS MONTHS MEETING: JD Wikert Our speaker this month will be J.D. Wikert. His presentation is titled: "Succulents: What you need to know about successful succulent culture". J.D. will discus taxonomy, distribution, cultivation, and propagation of the diverse group of plants known as succulents. He will also show pictures of many of the more readily available genera. You might have seen J.D. speak in previous meetings about Stapeliads, Dudleya, Gasteria, Sedum, Senecio, Adromischus, and Haworthia and this talk will follow a similar format. Members are encouraged to bring their own plants to the mini-show. *JD Wikert will provide the raffle table this month and have plants for sale, so be sure to bring your cash. Bring boxes for your winnings. *Reminder to Monica Paniagua (food) &, Harry Gong (drinks) this is your month to bring refreshments. *Reminder that we need someone to volunteer to be the greeter this month. PLANT STUDY: by Elton Roberts Astrophytum myriostigma ssp. quadricostatum I have to think that Astrophytum myriostigma ssp. quadricostatum is a figmentation of the imagination. Now the reason I say that is that every one of the plants I have had has gone 5 or more ribbed before they are much more than about 10 cm tall. In the first photo you can see that besides the plant with the flower there are two more square blocks. But that photo was taken over two years ago and the plants are four ribbed no more. I think that the plant in the photo has stayed four ribbed the longest of any quadricostatum I have had. It is 17 cm tall but like the rest of the plants it is also going ribsplitting. You can see that the rib on the left side is starting with the process by growing of two sets of areoles. I do not know what plants the Japanese cross to come up with A. onzuka but I have noticed that many of the plants of A. onzuka, I grow, are four ribbed and stay that way for some time. Looking at the plants I see A. myriostigma. As so many of them are four ribbed, I have to think that they use quadricostatum as one of the parents. So I am including two photos of a real chunk of a plant or onzuka as part of quadricostatum. This plant is all of 12 cm tall and it is 13 cm in diameter. I have to guess that it is now about 13 years old. To say that an A. myriostigma ssp. quadricostatum is stable is just not correct for as you can see, even the onzuka is, after all this time, doing the rib-splitting thing. This shows up best in the photo of the top of the plant. As for the different varieties or subspecies of Astrophytum myriostigma here is how I look at them. I have grown the plants long enough to see that any of them will in time become columnar, so eliminate ssp. columnare, some of the plants just forget to dress up in flocking so you can also eliminate var. glabrum, some plants have less flocking than others and so you can eliminate ssp. potosinum. Potosinum is supposed to have a greener body than the regular myriostigma. By the same thinking some plants have more flocking than other plants, so even though tulense has a whiter body it means nothing, so eliminate it as a subspecies. As for quadricostatum it has rounded ribs so you could say that it is a ssp. strongylogonum. So you might as well eliminate those two names as subspecies also as they seem not to make sense. And that leaves ssp. nudum and that goes back to var. glabrum. In my looking at the Astrophytum myriostigma world I have come to the conclusion that the plant is variable in rib count, the amount of flocking, how tall it will grow and even the flowers vary in size and color from plant to plant so there is just one plant that is quite variable. I am not trying to sound like a lumper but I just cannot find any reason to keep so many varieties or subspecies.

4 JULY MINI SHOW RESULTS: Novice Division, Cacti: 1 st - Joan Stewart w/ Mammillaria plumosa 2 nd - Greg Severi w/ Lophophora williamsii Novice Division, Succulent: 1 st - Greg Severi w/ Aeonium 'Sunburst' crest 2 nd - Pat McWilliams w/ Crassula perforata 3 rd - Joan Stewart w/ Haworthia sp. Novice Division, Blooming: 1 st - Joan Stewart w/ Euphorbia decaryi 2 nd - Greg Severi w/ Euphorbia sp. Advanced Division, Cacti: Advanced Division, Succulent: Advanced Division, Blooming: 1 st - Barbara Coelho w/ Pedilanthus macrocarpus Open Division, Cacti: Open Division, Succulent: Open Division, Blooming: Allied Interest: MONTHLY MINI SHOW: OPEN TO ANY CLUB MEMBERS THAT WANT TO SHOW PLANTS! The mini show, held at the general meetings, is a time when you can bring your plants, to compete against other members plants. There are 10 categories: Cacti & Succulent, (Open, Advanced & Novice Divisions), Bloomers (anything in bloom, also three divisions) & Allied Interest (dish gardens or natural planters). You may bring up to 2 from each category. The forms for judging are available to take home so that you can fill them out prior to the meeting if you wish, or there will be some at the meeting as well. The plants are judged by the members attending that meeting; whoever receives the most votes wins that months mini show & will get their name in the next newsletter. The person(s) receiving the most votes at the end of the year will receive a gift from the club. WE ENCOURAGE ALL MEMBERS TO BRING PLANTS TO SHOW THROUGHOUT THE YEAR! FYI: The mini show categories are Novice - those with fewer than 5 years of showing in the mini-show. Advanced those who have shown for more than 5 years in the mini-show & does not sell more than $300 in plants a year. Open those who sell more than $300 in plants a year. Also you must own the plant for at least 6 months before you can show the plant in the mini show. Brian Poot, Mini show coordinator

5 PLANT STUDY: by Elton Roberts Agave parryi compacta variegata marginata I think that the most popular of the small-variegated Agaves is Agave parryi compacta variegata marginata. It was in demand so much that a shop in southern California was at one time charging $ each for 1.5 to 2 inch off sets. He had had the price at $50 and enough people wanted one that he seemed to get a bit greedy and doubled the price. From what I understand he lowered it again when the demand went down. At the time I was selling the same plants that were 5 inches in diameter for $5.50. When the news spread that the pants were $100 each in southern California I sold out in record time and had orders for another hand full. At the time I was at a sale in San Francisco and the next day I took in all the plants I had and sold them before they hit the sales tables. This is the plant that is also seen as A. patoni and there is the non-variegated plant but you do not see it for sale as often as the variegated form. The plant is a form of A. parryi ssp. truncate. Truncate = square at the tip as if cut off. This can be seen quite well in the side view of the plant as the leaves are not rounded off or long tapering at the end but seem to almost be cut off so as to shorten them. The plant, weather variegated or the regular plant is a good off setter and can make a clump in only a few years. Again to keep the plants more symmetrical it is best to remove the off sets before they get large enough to push up on the leaves of the parent plant. The largest plant I have seen is one I had some years ago; it was a bit over 33 cm in diameter. That plant won best Agave and best variegated Agave in several shows four or five years in a row. As habitat of the plant is at feet elevation it is wise to keep the plant in bright shade. The normal plant is blue gray and can reflect the burning rays of the sun but the dark green of the variegated form absorbs the rays and heat so can burn quite easily. The plants seem to go dormant in the heat of summer. The plant in the photo is in a 6-inch pot and it is time for it to go to at least an 8-inch pot. Also at the same time the off set will come off. It is best to do the up potting and offset removal in the fall as the plant is starting to grow after being dormant in the heat of summer. That is the time, I have discovered, that I cause the least amount of stress to the plant. There are a lot of people that cut the roots back to about 4 inches long. That gets rid of the bird nest pile of roots in the bottom of the pot. I do not like doing that because I have seen that to grow new roots the plants will use the life and moisture from as many as the bottom two and sometimes three rows of leaves. If there is a bird nest of roots I will remove some of the bird nest and leave the roots as long as I can and still repot the plant in a larger pot. If the bird nest is so large that most of it has to be removed I still try and keep as much of the roots as I can, leaving them long enough so they can be curled around in the soil. That may make the next repot job sooner but it causes less stress to the plant. I have seen plants with the roots cut short and so stiff that the plants would not settle down in the pot with out the person having to cut them shorter. I have also seen people thin the roots by cutting them off at the base of the plant. They take pointed scissors and remove every other root. Then they could not figure out why the bottom leaves of the plant died and sometimes the entire plant would die. I use my regular soil mix for the plants. I figure the time to repot the plant is when the leaves grow over the side of the pot like in the photo. This is another plant that shows its dislike for alkaline water. It will slowly shrink and in time die if it is given alkaline water for too long. I think that the only reason I have any of the plant left is because I would give it rainwater when I had some to give. The plants had gotten down to only a few leaves when I started giving acidic water. Now they are back to what you see in the photos. That is a long way from the 12 to 14 inch in diameter show plants I use to have. RETURNING MEMBERS: PLEASE ADD TO YOUR WHO S WHO Stan & Pam Fish 5235 Staples Way Linden, CA Ph. (209) psfish.fish61@gmail.com

6 JULY MEETING PHOTO'S BY BRIAN POOT