South Coast C&SS monthly meeting -January 2026
NOTE: THIS IS A DIFFERENT TIME AND LOCATION FOR JANUARY!
Fred Hesse Jr. Community Park
McTaggart Hall [map]
Mini-Show Plants for January:
Cactus: Mammillaria – straight spine (clumping)
Succulents: Haworthia, Haworthiopsis, Astroloba, Tulista,
PRESENTER FOR JANUARY: GARY DUKE “Bolivia in Bloom” (28 Oct – 18 Nov 2017).
Gary has selected those photos that show cacti, bromeliads, and wildflowers in bloom in the Bolivian spring. His 3-week tour with Guillermo Rivera circled the altoplano with a side trip into the eastern lowlands around Santa Cruz. He has photos of numerous species of Cleistocactus, Echinopsis, Lobivia, Weingartia, Rebutia, and Sulcorebutia, almost all in flower. Sit back and see how beautiful they are in nature.
Gary Duke 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, 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, Gary worked as a program manager for Boeing for 16 years. He has over 1000 different species in his private collection and enjoys propagating them. One can view some plants in his collection on his Instagram site: garyduke53. He frequently gives slide presentations throughout southern California, including being invited to speak at the Huntington Botanical Gardens and the Denver Cactus and Succulent Society. He has traveled to Aruba, Peru, Baja Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Texas, and New Mexico to see cacti and succulents in habitat.