Giant M. plumosa?

[GermanStar]

Just picked this up as M. plumosa, but the main head is larger than a tennis ball. Can they grow that large or is this something else?

[Kamos]

Sure looks right to me.

[Ron43]

Looks great. One of mine is larger than a tennis ball and is now starting to multiply. It's showing about 9 new ones growing out of it.

[GermanStar]

OK thanks guys. All the plumosa I had seen previously had golf ball sized heads buried under so much fuzz I could barely tell what was going on under there.

[DaveW]

There are quite a few forms of plumosa, from the larger headed forms to those tight clustering ones with smaller heads. As with many species we usually get used to regarding the standard cultivated form as the norm, but the habitat population may be quite variable, therefore when new material is introduced from the wild it may differ considerably from the plant we have long known.

http://www.kakteensammlung-holzheu.de/B ... lumosa.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammillar ... osa_pm.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.lemiepiante.it/enciclopedia- ... umosa.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Even pink flowered ones, but with cultivated plants you can never be sure if that is the result of artificially selecting clones, or hybridity with other similar pink flowering Mammillarias.

https://tuteka.wordpress.com/cactus/mam ... a-plumosa/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[iann]

Some of them get pretty big before they divide. I'd resigned myself to this one staying single forever, but two years on from that photo it is finally starting on a couple of pups but taking its time even with those.

plumosa-1117.jpg (57.83 KiB) Viewed 1298 times