Rio Grande City, Texas - Lisa Williams is on edge as she drives down a remote section of highway in southern Texas, half joking that she should blindfold her passenger and insisting that their destination remain a secret.
The object of her nervousness was a protected area of just 160 hectares that is the habitat of a very rare plant, the star cactus.
"It always makes me nervous to talk about it publicly," said Williams, a naturalist helping with a federal study of the endangered species. "Now that we have the research just starting this spring, it would be very devastating if someone came and poached it all out."
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There are only 2 000 or so of the pin cushion-like plants in the wild, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service is investing $406 000 in the first extended study of them.
Although the cactus grows readily in nurseries, cactiphiles will pay $1 000 or more for the cachet of owning one that grew in the wild, said Dan Bach, owner of the Bach Cactus Nursery in Tucson, Arizona.
Nursery-grown specimens just aren't the same. "They're about the size of a golf ball and they sell for a buck," Bach said.
The star cactus, also known as the sand dollar cactus, scientific name Astrophytum asterias, is distinguishable by tufts that sprout from the center and create eight triangular sections. With rain, they turn a bright green and sprout a brilliant yellow flower. During drought, they turn brown and shrivel into the surrounding soil.
It's believed they once grew along a 565km stretch on both sides of the Rio Grande, but ranchers turned much of the area into grassland.
The star cacti were found about three years ago when some undeveloped land was put up for sale. A local resident knew the land "was a very special piece of property," said Williams, who helps The Nature Conservancy identify land for preservation. The nonprofit group, which is dedicated to protecting the natural habitat of animals and plants, bought 160 hectares.
"Maybe people think, this one species, if it goes, it wouldn't matter much in the scheme of things, but it's this species and another species and than another," Williams said.
"Each piece of the ecology you take out, you're reducing the biodiversity. And nature depends on that biodiversity. It's the web of life." - Sapa-AP
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