What was your first cactus ever?

[Brunãozinho]

I was taking some pictures of this Mammillaria fittkaui(?) yesterday and I remembered this one was among the first cacti that I had.

I don't even remember if it was me or someone else from my family who brought this plant into our house at the time, but I remember doing my first re-pots in 2009, and besides this Mammillaria, there were the common Myrtillocactus geometrizans, Mammillaria prolifera and Lobivia arachnacantha, one specimen of each, besides some other succulents.
Sometimes we get a bit more attached to our first plants.
So, do you remember your first ones?

[sabotenmen]

I bought my first cactus when I was about fourteen years old (38 years ago!) It was an Opuntia brasiliensis.

[DaveW]

Mine would have been an Opuntia or something similar off the local market when I was about 18 years old (56 years ago). The small pots of cacti were two shillings and six old pence each in those days (= 12.5 new pence now = 19 cents)

[Steve Johnson]

I bought my first cactus when I was about fourteen years old (38 years ago!) It was an Opuntia brasiliensis.

I have 7 years on you, sabotenmen. My first cacti were a Mammillaria spinossissima and a paper-spine Tephro, which I bought at a local grocery store in 1970 -- I was 12 at the time. The plants were sold in plastic pots containing some sort of white brick-like stuff. I had to literally chip it out to release the roots.

[jp29]

Echinopsis oxygona in 1939 -- seventy five years ago.
I bought subsequent cacti and succulents (in small pots) at Woolworth's -- sixpence each.

[cortez753]

My first cactus was a Moon Cactus (a grafted Gymnocalycium mihanovichii f. rubra) . I bought it when I was 26 thats was six years ago. I still have it but without the grafting stalk.

[cactidan]

Notocactus magnificus, a local collector had a small display at a fête and a few young plants for sale. I picked up a couple but this one was my favourite. I was 11 and it survived until I was 18, it was one of the plants too large to come to uni with me. So it was left in my mothers "care", instructions were left, water them once in 3 weeks time.I will be back soon after that for a visit. She subsequently thought my plants looked too dry and drenched them, regularly : (

[Ron43]

My first plant was a Kalanchoe, not really a cactus, but it was called a Mexican Hat cactus. That was 64 years ago. WOW time goes fast.

[Minime8484]

When we moved to AZ in 2001, my husband had to move a month earlier than I could. The day I arrived, he gave me my first cactus: a Golden Barrel (Echinocactus grusonii), of course - one of the iconic landscape images of the Phoenix area!

[george76904]

The first one that I bought was a Carnegie gigantea for my grandmother and myself to enjoy, she moved from southwest Texas to Georgia to join us and for that first Christmas I wanted to get her something to go with the southwestern motif of her house. She loved it!!

[Cactus Charlie]

My first was Cereus Aethiops, still going strong today but from cuttings of the original which was overwatered....
Still find it quite a hard cactus to get hold of here in the UK

[Arjen]

I was on holiday in germany and the lady we rented an apartment from had a huge basket with a flowering cluster of Echinopsis eyriesii in it.
she offered me a cutting and that is how the madness started

[spikef35]

I was visiting a old friend in Austin and he had begun growing cacti he gave me mammilaria geminispina and mammilaria myastx

[jfabiao]

The first cactus in my life and the one that sparked the whole obsession turned out to be not a cactus at all - it was an Euphorbia mammillaris that belonged to my mother and lived happily for years on the balcony until I killed it when I decided to incorporate it in my "collection".

[adetheproducer]

I had always had cacti, my parents had several on the windowsills as I grew up but can't remember the species now. They became mine but I lost interest in my teens and my parents ignored them so off to the great compost heat in the sky they went. I came back to cacti a few years back now and bought a lophophora williamsii purely to prove they where available in the UK to a friend and then I was hooked. Got something like 170 individual plants now including seedlings and always looking to expand my collection but the lop's are my very favourites. You can never have enough loph's.