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Los Angeles Cactus and Succulent Society

Meeting in the San Fernando Valley.

LACSS CELEBRATES 80 YEARS!

Welcome to the website of the Los Angeles Cactus and Succulent Society. Our nearly 200 members come from throughout the southland and share a passion for cacti and succulents. This year, LACSS is celebrating its 80th birthday with special events and publications. Throughout LACSS history, many of the most prominent researchers, authors, and collectors of the succulent world have been leaders and members of our society.

LACSS meets monthly in the San Fernando Valley to enjoy stimulating presentations, hands-on workshops, plant sales, mini-shows, raffles, trading, and other activities. In addition, LACSS offers field trips to member gardens, nurseries, and private collections. We serve the greater community by offering free educational activities, upgrading the Succulent Garden at the Sepulveda Garden Center, and presenting an exciting annual show.

In order to share the joys and benefits of collecting and cultivating cacti and succulents, we invite you to check out our general meetings at 7:00 pm on the 1st Thursday of each month at the Sepulveda Garden Center in the San Fernando Valley. Attendance is FREE, and each visitor receives a free plant! We hope to see you at a meeting soon.

Joyce Schumann

President

Mission Statement

The Los Angeles Cactus and Succulent Society (LACSS) cultivates the study and enjoyment of cacti and succulent plants through educational programs and activities that promote the hobby within a community of fellow enthusiasts and among the greater public.

Thursday, August 3, 2017 Program

LACSS meeting begins at 7:00 PM .

The Sepulveda Garden Center will open for set-up

at 6:15 pm

Speaker August Program: Gary Duke

Topic: “What Kind of Cactus Is It”

Gary Duke is our presenter this month. He 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 has been collecting cacti and succulents since he was 10 years old. 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 Club in the southern California area. He is currently on the Board of Directors for the Cactus and Succulent Society of America. Following his military career, he worked as a program manager for Boeing for 16 years and then was a consultant to the Air Force another 6 years.. He's an avid collector of cacti and also collects Tylecodons and Dudleyas. He has over 1000 different species in his private collection and enjoys propagating them. He frequently gives slide presentations throughout southern California.

August Plants of the Month

Cacti: Melocactus

Succulents: Euphorbia Caudiciform