ShareThisWhile helping curator Clark Moorten clean up at the Moorten Botanical Gardens in Palm Springs, Calif., I saw it for the first time. Dusty and dog-eared, the Cactus and Succulent Journal seemed to leap out of the dark with its incredible photography.
Pausing to peruse these water-stained pages, I realized that this was no mere garden magazine. Here was the very epicenter of these plants, the place where the experts, junkies, educators, explorers and aficionados came together to share their intense love of these little-known plants.
What all succulent species share is specialized water-holding cells that maintain internal moisture for long dry periods. They include the cacti, which are found only in the Americas, with some minor exceptions. The rest are not cacti but succulent plants adapted to arid climates of Africa, the Canary Islands and other dry spots.
I soon learned that this is the regular publication of a most noteworthy organization, the Cactus and Succulent Society of America, founded in Pasadena, Calif., in 1929. The society's members were cactophiles, discouraged by the lack of up-to-date cultural information about this realm. Many were ardent horticulturists, others self-taught authorities such as Clark, and still more were entrepreneurs seeking to create nurseries to bring the plants to market.
Nearly all other plants are widely grown around the world and quite well-known. But the succulents are an enormous specialty due to their climatic preferences. So little was known, that as soon as a book was published it seemed obsolete. This is even more of a problem today as DNA testing is forcing many groups to be lumped into others, or split into many. Only through a living journal could this sequestered world share its newfound knowledge in a timely fashion.
I immediately joined the society so that I could drool over every page of the journals the moment they arrive. I dreamed of a huge archive of them as Clark's mother Pat amassed during the latter half of the 20th century. Fortunately, the society has digitized them all on a CD so I could buy instant access to a lifetime of information.
The most valuable aspects of the journal are the articles and photographs by experts who travel the world to see the plants in their natural habitat. Nothing tells you more about what a plant wants than the place it chooses to live and reproduce. You can see what kind of plants it grows with, and how close they live together. For example, the current issue features an excellent article about Opuntia fragilis, a native prickly pear of Iowa. The story shows how these little cacti blend into the native grasslands, and even documents a colony thriving amid an Iowa cornfield.
When the articles are written by folks such as Russell Wagner, one of the world's authorities on lithops, the mind-boggling living stones of South Africa, you are assured a visual feast with accurate text. His fabulous scanned images and detailed information on how to grow them from seed with revelations on rooting depth and flowering are nothing short of awesome. And this is all in one issue.
The society also works to help protect wild species around the world. It is particularly focused on wild cacti of the Americas, which are struggling from illegal collection and loss of habitat. Slow growth and rare reproduction of many species put them at serious risk of extinction, and this society is dedicated to raising awareness.
To learn more, join or shop the Cactus and Succulent Society of America, log on to its Web site, www.cssainc.org. As a member, you will receive the Journal every other month, finely printed in full color with an equally informative newsletter. Plus, you will know that your dues will go toward the preservation of these little-understood plants.
(Maureen Gilmer is a horticulturist and blogger at www.MoPlants.com/blog.)
YARDSMART
