In 2015 the Atacama Desert flowered after abundant rains, a phenomenon known as El Desierto Florido, or The Flowering Desert. I’d long wanted to go to Chile, but missed the rare bloom scenario that year because of an inability to get the timing and finances lined up in time to witness the short-lived, but spectacular, floral show. Making good on my intention to actually visit this country regardless of rains in the Atacama or not, I booked a trip in October 2016 with several friends, and while it was wonderful, it was a dry year (which most are in said desert) and as such there was little to observe from a wildflower standpoint.

However the rains fell again in 2017, after an unusually short return cycle of only two years, and this time I went forth on shorter notice and with two other friends who were also able to join me. We saw hundreds of species of wildflowers of all types in bloom which had been absent in 2016 in the same areas, and of course the spectacular cactus genus Copiapoa, which is endemic entirely to within the borders of Chile. I’ve been addressing some of those wildflowers in other posts, but this one will deal primarily with the Copiapoas.

Copiapoa cinerascens dots the slopes below ranges of rugged hills.

It was a day of Copiapoas, three species of amazing cacti at Chile’s Pan de Azucar National Park. I visited this stand of C. cinerascens a year ago in October 2016, and took photos of scenes like this one minus the orange Argylia radiata flowers. The flowers are an upgrade to the image, aren’t they? One can imagine the landscape without them, which in fact is usually the case, since rains that bring the Argylia up may be spaced years apart.

Call me Copiapoa Cinerascens Man today. It’s my alter ego to Cactusman when in Chile.

I frequently am asked about how old such cacti are. While definitive answers are currently impossible to provide since cacti do not provide conveniently countable annual growth rings in durable wood like most dicotyledonous trees and shrubs do, the answer for Copiapoa cinerascens and its relatives is a minimum of a couple hundred years in a dry climate like this. These clumps are large, which takes time, plus they don’t grow every year either in such a low-rainfall climate as the northern Chilean coast. Even in good conditions they only grow a fraction of an inch annually. Photos taken 20 years apart show virtually no size changes, so the age of these specimens dotting the arid outwash plains at Pan de Azucar NP is likely to be centuries.

Sweeping ocean views of two Copiapoa species along the Pacific Coast of Chile.

Here are two of the three species of Copiapoa that live in Pan de Azucar National Park. In the foreground we have C. serpentisulcata, which is a relatively uncommon species that I had not seen before today in October 2017. Behind it is C. cinerascens, which I’ve posted a bunch of photos of both this year and in 2016. The dark green shrub with yellow flowers in the background is Euphorbia lactiflua, an endemic shrub to the Atacama Desert that bleeds abundant white sap when broken, hence the Latin naming. There are so many cool plants in Chile.

When it comes to my own personal history of growing Copiapoas in cultivation, I grew about 5 or 6 species for a few years back in the 2000s, but outdoors in Arizona they were not all that happy. It is both too hot and too cold for them in the interior Sonoran Desert, far away from the mild coastal waters of Baja, Mexico or Southern California which are similar climates to those of northern and central Chile, respectively. While the potted Copiapoas I kept survived, they struggled, grew slowly, and were vulnerable to sudden rot and being consumed by rodents since my outdoors-only growing conditions are less than ideal for this genus. Over the course of years I eventually lost them all, sadly. So I eventually stopped trying. In any case, the genus is way better in habitat than anything I’ll ever be be able to keep alive at D:F Ranch.

The stunningly handsome Copiapoa columna-alba.

Last, but not least, the third of the Copiapoa cactus species at Pan de Azucar National Park is C. columna-alba. The aptly named “white column Copiapoa” was also a new species for me. I came to within one or two kilometers of seeing these in October 2016, but at that time I didn’t know they were there, and the road to that portion of the park was blocked off to vehicular access due to erosion from the 2015 rains. So we wouldn’t have discovered them without knowing that they were just down the road, and that we could have hiked over. Well at least we learned of their existence in 2017. This plant is nearly two feet tall, and isn’t it stunning?

An army of Copiapoas marches across the dry landscape.

There is literally no place else on earth that looks like this outside of Chile’s Atacama Desert, where colorful but barren mountains are fronted by tens of thousands of Copiapoa columna-alba cacti and fog from the nearby Pacific rolls overhead like a sunshade. When I learned about these plants nearly 20 years ago, I knew that I wanted to go see them someday. Amazingly unique, and an incomparable ecosystem.

Another common question is “Why do all the plants lean the same direction?” The answer is that they lean to the north or northwest to face the sun, which helps keep the growing points where new cells and flowers/fruits develop warmer, in this cool and foggy climate. In the northern hemisphere, cacti of this nature (like Ferocactus and Echinocactus) tend to lean to the south or southwest towards the sun for the same reason. You’ll also see northward-tilting plants in South African Pachypodium namaquanum, so it’s not limited to cacti only.

My new motto: Have you Kissed Your Copiapoa today?

Another coastal Chilean denizen.

Headed to Pan de Azucar, we stopped in on a sea lion colony inhabiting a set of rocky islets off of the Chilean coast near Chañaral. This guy was resting on the mainland, a ways apart from the rest of the group on offshore rocks. Is he an outcast? A loner? Or am I anthropomorphizing?

The answer is probably that he’s a juvenile male, waiting for his chance to join the main colony someday, since the dominant bulls with harems of females won’t let him get too close since he is viewed as breeding competition. Odds are good that he’ll eventually get his chance since maintaining a harem and fending off challenges to their authority is exhausting for sea lion bulls. They burn out before too long and then a younger, more aggressive male can have his time in the sun with the ladies. tough life for the sea lions and for the cacti, albeit for different reasons.