Adventures in Mexico part VII

10th November 2014

On the road for 7am to see what we can see up there in the southern part of the Parque Nacional Los Marmoles.

A white flowered Argemone mexicana and grumpy looking lizard at our first stop.

Nice fern (Astrolepis sinuata?) and Agave horrida.

A bit further up the road and there was this rather nice chunky Agave salmiana ssp crassispina. They do this rather nicely in Hidalgo, don’t they.

Further still and we saw this lovely fern, Llaeva cordifolia. Actually at quite high altitude, as we have seen this largely below 2000m. Also a sighting of a Nolina – evidently an arborescent one that has been cut down or damaged. Must be more somewhere!

And, just around the corner, there were. But what is it? Nothing I recognise. The only Nolina that is ‘supposed’ to be around here is Nolina parviflora, and this isn’t that unless it is growing extremely out of character in the shade. Nolina parviflora has stiff leaves and quite an erect crown, this is very definitely weeping. Very interesting‼

We carried on for some way, gaining altitude until we reached the top of the hill at around 3100m. We stopped for a bit of a look around and saw some nice Agave salmiana…

Then downhill for a while until we saw these couple of plants – but were they baby versions of the Nolina we had seen earlier or a trunkless sp with wide lax leaves? I believe the latter, as this one had more than one crown. Difficult to say for sure as there were only a couple of plants and they weren’t accessible.

As we progressed downhill a problem became apparent with the car – loss of brakes! Apparently riding the brakes downhill caused the brakes to get quite hot and the brake fluid to boil! Oops. While we waited for them to cool down, assisted by river water, we had a look at these Dasylirion glaucphyllum – quite the nicest and most compact form I have ever seen of this. Very short, wide and stiff leaves.

It was lovely around here and there was a nice little poppy-type thing on the rocks which Mark tells me is Hunnemannia fumariifolia.

On a little further and more Agave salmiana.

Also more of that small Nolina - this time in greater numbers and clearly a trunkless species, as opposed to baby plants of the arborescent one. There was a large, multi-crowned plant at the top of a steep rock face but not accessible.

Not a bad day at the office – two undescribed species of Nolina and more beautiful Agave salmiana ssp crassispina than you could shake a stick at. It was getting dark and we had a bit of a drive back to our hotel so we left. Same hotel, same dinner‼ Fabulous.

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