Epi-cacti in their natural habitat in Southeast Brazil

[mmcavall]

I’d like to share some pictures of three epi-cacti in their natural habitat in Brazil.

We are southeast Brazil, São Paulo State, coordinates -21.961277, -47.844825

Here we have the meeting of two Biomes, the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest, which means ecotonal and very diverse environments.

Nevertheless, the landscape is highly fragmented, so we have a patchy landscape with agricultural areas surrounding forest fragments of Atlantic Forest and Cerrado.

The pictures are from the Atlantic Forest fragment that appears if you put the coordinates (above) in google maps.

Although being Atlantic Forest, we are far from the Atlantic Ocean, and here we have the Semidecidual Atlantic Forest, which is a dry forest during winter months, when part of the trees lost their leaves.


First picture is of the border of the fragment:



Below this tree there were two epi-cacti (I can’t ID them):

Sorry I could’nt get closer because of the fence. First one hidden among the green…



Second one more easy to see:





I walked a little in this trail:



And found that tall tree with a (probably) Rhipsalis growing on it.
Not easy to see, you would need to zoom it to find the cactus:



Here a close up of the cactus, close to a Tillandsia (Bromeliaceae):



Here a bonus of a cacti growing on the fence:



Hope you guys enjoyed the trip.

[Vipassana]

Thank you for these photos. I'm a fan of Rhipsalis cactus, but I've struggled to grow them here in Arizona, I assume because of the lack of humidity. I've had to start bringing them inside during there hottest months of June and July, but with the humidity of August I bring them outside again. I can see from your photos that they love humidity.

[mmcavall]

Well, it is wet but only half of the year. From June to September it rains very sparsely. The grass (pastures) become dry and the trees lost their leaves.
Can you imagine this Rhipsalis growing on the trunk of this tall tree, for 3 months without rain, under full sun and wind? It is not humidy at all (well, maybe it is compared to Arizona!).