Matucana flowers!

[Wilk]

In flower today. M Comacephala after a gap of several years:


Without wishing to tempt fate, my M Ritteri has buds after also opting out last year. It is a stunner:

[majcka]

Nice!

[Wilk]

Getting closer

[Wilk]

I cannot take a photo which does it justice but here are a couple nevertheless:

[Brunãozinho]

Nice flowers! M. Comacephala is adorable.

[iann]

Nice flowers! M. Comacephala is adorable.

I do like the spinier Matucanas with their more delicate flowers.

[Wilk]

Intertexta - nice to get 3 at the same time:





Unfortunately that's all I can offer for this year. I am hoping for some new species to flower next year all being well.

[iann]

Looks like you have a good variety of them.

[Minime8484]

Fabulous plants and photos! Congratulations! I have just started to get really into that genus!

[DaveW]

According to Graham Charles who has studied them in habitat the more densely spined Matucana's (comacephala, haynei etc) come from higher altitudes (no doubt a protection from cold) and so will stand cold better than the more sparsely spined open bodied ones which used to be called Submatucana's and come from lower altitude warmer areas.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/38064/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Can't claim any credit for these except this years flowers as they came to me from a friends collection who died last year.

Matucans krahnii

Mat.-krahnii.jpg (37.24 KiB) Viewed 1424 times

Matucana madisoniorum

M.-madisoniorum.jpg (27.42 KiB) Viewed 1424 times

[iann]

According to Graham Charles who has studied them in habitat the more densely spined Matucana's (comacephala, haynei etc) come from higher altitudes (no doubt a protection from cold) and so will stand cold better than the more sparsely spined open bodied ones which used to be called Submatucana's and come from lower altitude warmer areas.

Partially, statistically, true However there are clear exceptions. M. formosa is densely spined but one of the lowest altitude and most tender in the genus. M. polzii is hardy and from fairly high altitude, but virtually spineless. M. huagalensis is another high altitude plant that is not densely spined, while M. oreodoxa has even fewer spines and grows at possibly the highest altitude of any Matucana. There could be other factors, such as the denseness of competing vegetation, accounting for spination differences.

Or it could simply be a coincidence. The lowest altitude plants are the Submatucanas with very few spines, easily lost, while the M. haynei group are densely spined and grow at moderate to high altitudes. Take those out of the mix and I'd say there is little correspondence between altitude and spination.

[7george]

Nice colours and flowers indeed.

I was thinking that spines could be a protection from the strong sun in high elevations, but different species could pick different strategies to cope with this. If the plants go under the vegetation or under ground (at least partially) they will not need much spines then, right? Spines also help in catching the dew or fog so its thickness shows how much some cacti rely on this moisture resource.