Meeting Location: DBG – Dorrance Hall
Meeting Time: 2:00 p.m.

The monthly meetings will include:

  • Announcements of upcoming meetings and events
  • Club news
  • Silent Plant Auction
  • Monthly presentation

Members frequently bring in cuttings to share on the free plant table.

We meet at 2:00 pm the last Sunday of most months at the Desert Botanical Garden, 1201 North Galvin Parkway, Phoenix, Arizona. The general meeting begins at 2 pm but you can come early to socialize and peruse the Silent Auction plants. Here is a map of the Garden.

Our Board meets monthly to discuss CACSS business; all members are welcome to attend Board meetings.

Presenter: Doug Dawson

Doug is a retired math professor and does extensive botanical travels to areas of the world where succulents grow, including Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Yemen, Socotra, Africa, and his own state of Arizona.  He has organized 16 botanical exploratory trips to South Africa and Namibia, camping on local farms and public areas for three weeks and exploring the surrounding mountains and hills by day.

One of his key interests has been seed-growing of cacti and succulents.  Other interests are photography and PowerPoints with succulent content. He has delivered many workshops and speaking engagements in Arizona and other states.

He has a background in German and French. Nowadays Afrikaans has become a much more useful language for him in rural South African and Namibian areas.

Doug’s private plant collection emphasizes seedlings, Lithops, other Mesembs, Northern Cape Crassulas, and Arizona natives.  He is a member of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America, Central Arizona Cactus and Succulent Society and the Tucson Cactus and Succulent Society.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflections on Mesembs

The PowerPoint will include a presentation on interesting Mesemb plants.  Doug will explore many unusual species, beautiful blooms, and oddities.  The audience will see plants they may have never seen before and some attributes which will either dazzle you or leave you scratching your head.

The succulents covered are from the southern one fifth of Namibia and the Northern Cape of South Africa as well as Bushmanland.  There were so many exotic genera and species to choose from.  Color, shape, texture, and survival tactics combine to make a real kaleidoscope of plants.