March10_2010

Botanical Glossary - Home - References Cited

Vista Hermosa, San Agustin and San Sebastian are three tightly knit villages that reside in the mouth of El Rio Valley, Oaxaca Mexico. The lifeblood of these villages relies on the fresh water diverted along the canal from further east along El Rio River.

Photos - L-R - A permanent canal in the village of San Agustin supplies the farms and fields with a three times weekly supply. This is Colon street, the main street of San Agustin that directly links San Sebastian and Vista Hermosa with San Agustin.

San Agustin hill looking south to San Sebastian and La Corona (to the left of the photo).

Looking south to La Conona from the edge of the Vista Hermosa Reservoir.

Photos - Frame left: Another irrigation canal within San Agustin village, with no cement lining but passes through the village

Frames right and center: A cliff rock section of the fresh water canal in El Rio Valley about half-way between Vista Hermosa and the first canal bridge and Pylons.

Photos - Frames left and right: A section of repaired irrigation canal, El Rio Valley in background (frame left).

Center frame: Hechtia Ghiesbreghtii ("glomerata" Bromeliad) As with most members of the subfamily Pitcairnioideae they too are heavily armed with marginal spines and require great care when handling. Hechtias are terrestrial and grow on desert hillsides and rocky slopes alongside cactus and are truly xerophytic, with standing long periods of drought and extreme variations in temperature. The flowers of this genus are mainly insignificant and nearly always white in color. Hence they are usually grown for their glossy foliage rather than their flowers.

Herbs or rarely shrubs, epiphytic, lithophytic, or terrestrial . Leaves spirally arranged , usually rosulate, sessile, simple , veins parallel, base dilated , sheathing , margin often spinose serrate or sometimes entire. Inflorescence terminal or lateral , scapose or sessile, a panicle, raceme , spike, or head , sometimes reduced to solitary, pseudolateral flowers; bracts usually brightly colored and conspicuous . Flowers bisexual or sometimes functionally unisexual , 3-merous. Sepals and petals each 3, distinct , free or basally connate ; petals often brightly colored, basal margin with a pair of scalelike appendages . Stamens 6, in 2 whorls of 3; filaments free, connate, or collectively or individually adnate to petals; anthers 2-celled, dehiscing by longitudinal slits. Gynoecium of 3 carpels united to form a compound , 3-loculed, superior or very often partly or wholly inferior ovary ; ovules few to usually Â± numerous in each locule; placentation axile . Style terminal and often 3-parted; stigmas papillose . Fruit a berry or less often a septicidal capsule, or seldom compound and fleshy . Seeds usually winged or plumose ; endosperm mealy ; embryo small to fairly large.

Click here for more photos of Vista Hermosa, El Rio Valley for this day.