POSTCARD from Mexico N°17

(By Fernando Rivadavia) 

Pinguicula Hunting in Mexico with the Barefoot Boys

            Ruben Resendiz & I joined forces with Noah Elhardt and Forbes Conrad – also known as the barefoot boys for their masochistic habit of hiking shoeless even in the prickly deserts of Mexico! – for yet another Pinguicula hunting trip. Noah & Forbes are traveling all around Mexico, taking fantastic photographs of wild Pinguicula while revisiting a few known sites and making fantastic new discoveries too, including the new natural hybrid between P.parvifolia & P.heterophylla.

            Forbes & Noah arrived in Mexico City from Oaxaca on late on Friday the 14^th of July, 2006. Ruben & I picked them up at the bus station and we headed immediately north towards and a little past San Juan del Río. Our objective was to explore the Moctezuma Canyon for the famous P.moctezumae and P.elizabethiae. On my previous visit to Mexico in 2003-2204, I had attempted to find these species on two other occasions, with no success (see postcard #1). So before heading out this time, Ruben and I studied possible new routes using a fantastic new tool for CP hunting: Google Earth.

            We started out early on Saturday morning heading towards the small town of La Mora, which is located downriver on the north end of the canyon. This is one of the known sites where P.elizabethiae was collected and we hoped that their large pink flowers (which should be present at this time of year) would be easy to spot. The region is a harsh desert, hard to believe any Pinguicula grows there. We explored a few habitats along the main road and found a fantastic dirt road that follows the canyon for a few kilometers downstream, but we were not able to enter the canyon and head upstream as we had hoped. Nonetheless, once again we found nothing.

            Empty-handed, we headed back the way we had come and circled around to the south side of the canyon, where we hoped to explore a few more places. Along the way, near San Joaquín, we discovered a population of P.moranensis growing on mossy ground in a semi-shaded oak forest at 2425m altitude. The rosettes were surprisingly small, mostly around 5cm in diameter and the flowers were mostly purple. There were also some curious bluish millipedes crawling around this site.

            A little further on we stopped at a famous P.esseriana site both Ruben & I had visited before along this same road (see postcard #10). Curiously, P.esseriana were very hard to find, often partially hidden under pine needles – hard to believe, considering the hundreds or thousands of flowering plants seen in the dry season! The summer rosettes were a pinkish dark-green in color and growing in barely humid soil.

We ended up paying a lot more attention to the numerous P.moranensis present, many of which in flower. The rosettes were mostly a healthy yellow-green in color and the flowers a magnificent bright dark pink (which unfortunately did not show in my pictures).

            Arriving finally at the southern end of the Moctezuma canyon, we stopped on the Queretaro (western) side to explore some dirt roads we had seen on Google Earth. We had some beautiful views of the canyon, saw some great cacti, but the area just wasn’t right for Pinguicula. It was getting late in the afternoon when we headed to the Hidalgo (eastern) side of the canyon and began exploring another dirt road which headed north, parallel to the canyon. The area seemed very promising and I knew right off that this was where we should have spent most of our day – if only we had started out here…

            Several deep valleys led from the road down into the canyon, which is supposedly where P.moctezumae and P.elizabethiae grow. Always with my GPS in hand, I spotted a N-facing calcareous cliff while Ruben navigated the many curves and obstacles along the road, which we decided to explore. We climbed out of the car and began the long walk down to the cliff, carefully picking our way through the spiny xerophytic vegetation.

            When we arrived at the top of cliff, I spotted rosettes and screamed out: P.elizabethiae!!! As we crowded around the rosettes and took our first pictures, I commented that they looked like winter leaves. A few seconds later I found another group of plants in flower, the petals white with purple tips and purple marks around the throat too, as well as a short downward-pointing green spur. It was P.agnata!! And we were in the municipio of Zimapan, which is the type location for this species!

            We found P.agnata all over that cliff, growing in surprisingly dry conditions, in shallow soil of small islands of vegetation, often alongside cacti and agaves. Nonetheless, the rosettes were a healthy yellow-green in color and numerous plants were in flower.

The habitat of P. agnata in the Rio Moctezumae canyon. Photo : F.Rivadavia	Forbes Conrad and Noah Elhardt the barefoot boys close to theThe habitat of P. agnata in the Rio Moctezumae canyon. Photo : F.Rivadavia
P. elizabethiae ? no, "only" P. agnata. Photo : F. Rivadavia	P. agnata growing on the cliff. Do you still think that Mexican Pinguicula are bogs plants ?. Photo : F. Rivadavia
P.agnata growing in shallow soil of small islands of vegetation. Photo : F. Rivadavia	P.agnata again. Photo : F. Rivadavia
P.agnata surprisingly growing alongside cacti and agaves. Photo : F. Rivadavia	P.agnata surprisingly growing alongside cacti and agaves. Photo : F. Rivadavia
P.agnata surprisingly growing alongside cacti in dry conditions. Photo : F. Rivadavia	.   P.agnata in full bloom even with this dry conditions around. Photo : F. Rivadavia
Impressive cluster of P. agnata growing more "shaded" than other clusters. Photo : F. Rivadavia
P. agnata with purple petals. Photo : F. Rivadavia	P. agnata with light purple petals. Photo : F. Rivadavia
Collection of flowers of P. agnata showing the variability of this species. Photo : F. Rivadavia	Collection of flowers of P. agnata showing the variability of this species. Photo : F. Rivadavia

Unfortunately, by the time we hiked all the way down the cliff, to the dry riverbed at the bottom, it was already 6pm -- alas too late to follow the riverbed down into the Moctezuma Canyon where we’d hopefully find P.moctezumae & P.elizabethiae. So we headed up the mountain and back to Mexico City. I had to fly out on Sunday, so P.moctezumae & P.elizabethiae will have to wait for another opportunity…

Fernando Rivadavia.