Dyckia stolonifera P.J.Braun & Esteves

Literature references:

Braun 2021: 24

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• Notes
  Dyckia stolonifera seems not too difficult to grow when cultivated in shallow pots. The plants prefer a mineral, slightly acid soil with some portion of humus. In winter the plants should be kept above 10° C. Propagation is easy by cutting mature offsets. The leaves become reddish and fleshy, especially in summer while receiving frequent irrigation, which makes the plant a real eye-catcher in a succulent plant collection.
  During this trip to the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, the destruction of the Pantanal Matogrossense and surrounding regions was an ongoing topic of our discussions.
  The Pantanal, stretching a few hundred kilometers from north to south and east to west, is a giant, annually flooded swamp adjacent to the lowlands of Bolivia in the west and the Paraguayan Chaco in the southwest. The Pantanal is a unique habitat for an extremely exotic and diverse fauna and flora.
  
  We had often visited the Pantanal, first Eddie, while producing a documentary film about the impact of the Transpantaneira road opening. Prior to the 1970s the Pantanal was a wild kingdom of jaguars, alligators, wolves, coati, tapirs, capybaras, monkeys, anacondas, and myriads of birds, notably macaws, glaucous macaws, toucans, and
  the giant Jabiru Woodstork. This was the virgin heart of South America. But the new road project cut directly through this exuberance. Preservation was ignored. With nary an obstacle the great tractors prepared the vulnerable forest aisle, a deep furrow that would destroy everything.
  
  Courses of rivers were modified, silting up great lakes and rivers. Giant centennial trees were cut or left to starve after deracination.
  But sometimes nature puts up a fight. Thanks to the power and the devastating energy of the annual inundations, year by year the road was systematically destroyed by floodwaters, and as if by miracle, the government finally stopped the ambitious highway project. After only 737 km, the itinerary of the famous Transpantaneira meets its end in a labyrinth of streams, lakes, islands, and endless savannah. Nevertheless the road spurred development of an increasing, and soon to become unhealthy, ecotourism.
  
  Discussing these impacts along the way, we proceeded through Mato Grosso do Sul in order to pass through the many cactus and bromeliad habitats that we'd been studying since the 1970s. Leaving the capital, Campo Grande, we headed south in order to follow the "route of paradise," a once-beautiful and well-preserved region.
  But what we found there was terrible. Everything had changed. Nothing was beautiful anymore. Unlike with the Transpantaneira, here in the south no miracle had transpired. Facing the undeniable destruction of nature in the southern part of Mato Grosso put an end to our dreams of traveling through what used to be one of the
  most beautiful and diverse regions of the western-Brazil savannahs. Today, after only three decades, on the great plains of Mato Grosso do Sul, especially in the areas bordering Paraguay, nearly all original native vegetation has been exterminated.
  
  There is nothing left but endless fields of grain and soy: monoculture. The desolate scenery is quite literally frightening. The only exciting thing in this region today is the car you are sitting in and the road itself, No birds. No animals. Where trees once decorated the horizon, there are now only the occasional clouds of red dust pinpointing the frenzied dance of tractors preparing nude soil. We had to abandon our objective to revisit all those habitats we knew, realizing that most of them are now lost forever. Unhappily most of these "old" habitats are only preserved in our 20-
  and 30-year-old slides.
  
  A few spots of wild nature remain, one being the habitat of Dyckia stolonifera. It has survived in small and dispersed micro-habitats, mostly adjacent to rocky spots were tractors can't intrude.
  Nevertheless it is in danger of extinction due to indiscriminate deforestation. Where the forest is not replaced by crop field, the rest will be done in by extensive cattle breeding as more and more farmers settle in the region. Nearly everywhere we witnessed thousands of dropped and burned trees, and in close proximity to our new bromeliad there are dozens of charcoal kilns, churning wood into fuel to meet the demands of Brazil's steel industry. —See Matuda 1973a