Unknown Echinocereus

[hegar]

I have a cactus growing in my front yard, that after producing a second stem finally started flowering for the first time last year.
I had assumed, that the plant is a "claret cup" Echinocereue coccineus, based on the general appearance. However, this cactus produces very small flowers, compared to the claret cup. The color, however, is as vividly red as any claret cup could produce.
The plant in question is present on the first image. For comparison, the other two cacti - one a claret cup and the other a hybrid claret cup - are shown alongside this plant in image 1.
The unknown cactus, although healthy looking and growing well, only produced one of those tiny blossoms each year thus far. Hopefully, it will improve on this performance.LOL

Harald

[snarfie]

The cactus itself looks like p. Pringlei to me, but i don't knownabout the flowers

[greenknight]

From reading this - http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx? ... =242415254" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - I gather the flowers of E. coccineus can vary considerably.

[hegar]

Thank you greenknight and snarfie. I had been thinking, that it could be an Echinocereus paucispinus, but I have never seen one of those up close. The images that I did find also show a less dense spine cover for that species.
However, there may be a wide genetic variability, which is expressed in very different physical appearance within a specific species.
It does look like a small-flowering version of our local claret-cup cacti, but I have never seen any plant that had such tiny flowers within the claret-cup population here.
That's why I thought, that the species would have to be something else.

Harald

[greenknight]

Another interesting thing I noticed, it appears to be a female flower - it has no anthers. http://cactus-art.biz/schede/ECHINOCERE ... cineus.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[hegar]

One of our local cactus collectors suggested, that the plant whose pictures are posted here could be a hybrid between a claret cup cactus (Echinocereus coccineus) and the New Mexico Rainbow cactus (Echinocereus viridiflorus ssp. chloranthus). The latter does have small flowers, which are arranged low on the stem. Does anyone on this forum have any other ideas?
The hybrids which did have E. viridiflorus ssp chloranthus genes as part of the parentage did have larger blossoms and the spines were longer and included a little bit of the reddish-pink coloration typical for this species. The flower was not of a deep red color.
This plant does have the claret cup flower color and similar spines. What is odd though, is the fact, that both E. viridiflorus ssp. chloranthus and E. coccineus produce many flowers, while this plant is rather "stingy", when it comes to flower production.

Harald