March11_2010

Botanical Glossary - Home - References Cited

Photos - Mount Picacho at sunset at the edge of Etla Valley and at the mouth of El Rio Valley - it looks awesome with its pyramid shape overlooking the semiarid desert to the west, the fertile El Rio River Valley to the south, and Vista Hermosa village snuggled at its western base. A San Agustin village woman returns from a day at the market place with her son riding on the donkey (frame left), Mt Picacho in background. The white building with red domed roof is the San Agustin Church in San Agustin with the abandoned Textile Mill buildings beside it.

Photos - L-R - The corner store in San Sebastian is a gathering place for villagers, youngsters to hang out and adults for minor grocery shopping and the use of the telephone (many of the villagers here can't afford telephones of their own and have to rely on public phones such as this.

Dasylirion plant: young flower spike in fore ground, older stem with seed pods behind. The Dasylirion is a flowering plant native to arid environments of Mexico, in Chihuahua and Sonora and in the southwestern United States, in Arizona, New Mexico and in Texas all the way east to the edge of the Southwest in Austin. It is a moderate to slow-growing evergreen shrub with a single unbranched trunk up to 40 cm thick growing to 1.5 m tall, though often recumbent on the ground. The leaf blade is slender, 35-100 cm long, gray-green, with a toothed margin.

The dog from next door gives us a visit for a short time, seeing if it can scrounge some food.

Photos - Frames left and right: Fully decked out with flower blossom spikes are a group of Haworthia (Sp Asphodelaceae) Haworthia is a genus of flowering plants within the family Asphodelaceae. They are small (typically 20 cm high) solitary or clump-forming and endemic to South Africa. Some species have firm, tough leaves, usually dark green in color, whereas other are soft and semi-translucent. Their flowers are small, white and very similar between species. But their leaves show wide variations even within one species. The classification of the flowering plant family Asphodelaceae is weak and concepts of the genera are not well substantiated. Haworthia is similarly a weakly contrived genus consisting of three distinct groups: subgenera Haworthia, Hexangularis, and Robustipedunculares. Related genera are Aloe, Gasteria and Astroloba and intergeneric hybrids are known.

Center frame: An elderly villager awaits the Collectivo in San Sebastian. The Collective is similar to the taxi service as it uses small motor vehicles, but is also similar to a bus service in that it picks up people along a specific route, going to and from specific destinations in Oaxaca (the bus depots and air port) and the outer districts such as Etla and San Sebastian.

Click here for more photos of San Agustin, Mexico for this day.