Cactus of the Month: Miniature (3in or less)

Succulent of the Month: Miniature (3in or less)

PRESENTER FOR OCTOBER IS: Gary Duke “What Kind of Cactus Is It?”

– Gary believes that anyone interested in cacti ought to be able to determine what genus a cactus plant belongs in just by examining it and looking for a few telltale signs. What do you look for? Come, learn and find out. If you know the genus, then you have a clue to the growth characteristics and flowers a plant will have. You will know if someone switched the name tags at your favorite box store. This is a tutorial on many of the small globular cacti families and their identifying characteristics – will it be tall or short and squat, will it have big or small flowers, is it from North America or South America. If you don’t like cacti, well he has lots of pictures of pretty cactus flowers to look at. Come and learn! (He has hand-outs too).

Gary Duke is an incumbent on the Board of Directors to the Cactus and Succulent Society of America. He currently assists with auditing the CSSA finances each year and also is a member of the Honors Committee. He has been collecting cacti and succulents for over 50 years. He’s an avid collector of cacti and also collects Tylecodons and Dudleyas. He is a retired Air Force officer with a doctoral degree in physics. During his military career, he moved his original and ever expanding collection of less than about 30 plants from Illinois, where he grew up, to Omaha, NE, Dayton, OH (where he started their first C&S Society, which is now defunct), San Pedro, CA, Montgomery, AL and Albuquerque, NM where he had been show chairman. He has also been President of the South Coast Cactus and Succulent Society and the Long Beach Cactus Society. Following his military career, he worked as a program manager for Boeing for 16 years. He has over 1000 different species in his private collection and enjoys propagating them. He frequently gives slide presentations throughout southern California, including being invited to speak at the Huntington Botanical Gardens and at the Denver Cactus and Succulent Society. He has traveled to Aruba, Peru, Baja Mexico and Bolivia twice to see cacti and succulents in habitat.