Full size shots of the A. ornatum, doubt that reddish colour between the white flecks is healthy but it came to me with it already starting before I really knew better. Been sprayed several times since and that reddish growth has stopped expanding.
@iann, Tony, peterb: This really is a good topic for the succulent people also. The diversity of surface structures is yet to be reached by cacti.
(nevertheless I personally like cacti more somehow )
@snowfella: I once had an astrophytum that started to look like that -and was dead a couple of month laterdue to some kind of rot. I just had dried out from the inside in the end. I do very much hope that yours will do better....
Shame to see a nice large Astro like that (capricorne of some sort I'm guessing) in that state! Hopefully my little ornatum just got a touch of mites and not rot, thinking it would be mites since I picked it up mid December with traces of it visible then and it's still not dead. The growth of it's even stopped and I can once again see healthy skin inbetween the ribs.
Hi snowfella, new growth always is a good sign. But don´t water it too early /too much just in case it survived an infestation with critters (might have left some wounds still).
Other candidates. I have to keep experimenting with my camera to get more consistently sharp focus. But these turned out to be some interesting angles.
A couple of my Mamm spinosissima Un Pico
And two of the Thelocactus hexaedrophorus, all collapsed from getting no water this winter.
Catch a falling star--but don't try it with a cactus!
Yes this is great for succulent growers! Paracelsus´ aloe is awesome too I think.
But some cacti do have kind of a nice texture too if looked at quite close.
A good makro device for the camera will lead to good pictures in this one.