Unlabelled Cacti

[Grimm]

Over the years I've collected a small number of un-labelled cacti, mostly impulse buys. I thought it was about time I checked if my IDs are correct and whether any of you could kindly help with me those that I'm unsure of, please. First, the ones I'm about 90% sure of:


1: Almost certainly Ferocactus glaucescens


2: Gymnocalycium horstii (ignore the label behind, I thought it was buenekeri for a while, but the skin is far too glossy)


3: Mammillaria mammillaris


4: Rebutia Heliosa, maybe the teresae variant

Now the uncertain ones:


5: Maybe Cleistocactus winteri, but being a crested cactus it could be any number of things. Looks like it has a grafting scar, but I bought it on it's own roots.

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6: Maybe a form of Rebutia heliosa, grafted on Hylocereus.


7: Maybe Gymnocalycium baldianum

Now the ones where I don't have a clue:

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8: Could be any number of cacti, from Lobivia ferox to a young Ferocactus, to some odd hybrid. It had very long, thick, roots wrapped around the bottom of the pot (not quite taproots, but still substantial)


9: This one was hiding under the pot of another cactus (hence the pale growth), so was technically free! Again, could be any number of things, but my gut feeling is that it is an Echinocereus of some kind.

Thanks

[Aiko]

I would say the first is Ferocactus hystrix.
Two and four are probably right. Don't know about the others.

[CactusMad]

The last one is probably an echinopsis.6 looks like sulcorebutia.

[Grimm]

I would say the first is Ferocactus hystrix.
Two and four are probably right. Don't know about the others.

Thanks

It seems the difference between hystrix and glaucescens is a blue hue/wax to the latter, and the colour of the fruits (red for hystrix, white for glaucescens). Mine does appear to have a blue hue, but it's very mild. Here's another shot:

The last one is probably an echinopsis.6 looks like sulcorebutia.

Cheers

[vlani]

6 is Blossfeldia. It never looks like a real thing when grafted.

[greenknight]

#9 looks like Echinocereus viridiflorus to me.

[Robb]

Number 6 is most likely Rebutia heliosa, I'd hazard a guess at number 8 to be Lobivia pentlandii, number 9 looks like an etiolated Trichocereus/Echinopsis, and for number 5 I'd say some sort of Rebutia.

[Grimm]

6 is Blossfeldia. It never looks like a real thing when grafted.

I wish! Sadly not, it's only a cheap £4 cactus from B&Q - I had been watching it grow in the store for a while and it started off as a single large head with a few small offsets, with the main head very typical of R.heliosa. It then covered the head in tiny offsets which have since grown in size.

It's starting to change its appearance, now that I have it in bright sunlight rather than the dark shelf it was growing on, so hopefully it will become easier to be certain of an ID.

[Aiko]

6 is Blossfeldia. It never looks like a real thing when grafted.

Indeed. But grafted makes an excellente plant to produces lots of seeds and a lot of opportunities to try to grow it yourself from seed. You need to be patient, though...

[Grimm]

After four months in decent light, Number 7 has changed quite a bit and is now definitely a R.heliosa of some kind.

[DaveW]

Yes my instant reaction to the original picture number 6 was Blossfeldia, but the give away it was not Blossfeldia was the elongated areole with the brownish wool. Blossfeldia does become more turgid on a graft, but the areole shape is different to heliosa.

http://www.cactus-art.biz/schede/BLOSSF ... putana.htm

One on it's own roots for comparison with the grafted one in the link above. The coin is one inch (25mm) diameter.

Blossfeldia-lilliputana3.jpg (88.5 KiB) Viewed 2666 times

You are probably correct with Gymnocalycium horstii, but the flower will decide it since G. horstii has white flower and G, bueneckerii or G. horstii v. bueneckeri has a pinkish one. Gymnocalycium denudatum (spider cactus) looks rather similar to G. horstii, but as its nickname suggests has curly spines arranged like a spider sitting on the areole.

https://gymnocalycium.wordpress.com/tag/brazil/

It is easy to get confused between G. horstii and bueneckeri if Googling on the web since most pictures show G. bueneckerii with the pink flower as horstii, but the original Horst Uebelmann G. horstii was the white flowered one. Again dealers tend to propagate the most attractive and saleable flower colour, as with Notocactus uebelmannianus, and neglect the other forms. Since they were originally collected others with varying degrees of pink in the flower have been brought into cultivation and maybe a bit of hybridisation in the past too. But the original horsti only has the merest trace of pink in it's predominantly white flower.

If you are interested in Gymnocalycium's Graham Charles's Gymno book is a mine of information and pictures on variation etc. Put "Gymnocalycium" in the search box in the link below.

http://www.exoticplantbooks.com/keyword_search/

For the UK and EU again use the search feature top left.

http://www.keithscactusbooks.co.uk/

[Grimm]

I bought a G.bueneckeri from the Robinson Cactus Nursery, and now I'm not so sure that my original one is horstii as the skin on the two is identical (or as identical as they can be, when mine is sickly). I also can't remember now where I read that horstii and bueneckeri had slightly different skin! Seems I will have to wait for the flower to be sure of the ID, as you (DaveW) suggest. Here's a photo of the two. The one on the left is the new cactus, grown from seed by the Robinsons, and the one on the right is my old and ugly unlabelled cactus.

[DaveW]

Here's my G. bueneckeri, obviously not the white flowered G. horstii. Quite a large plant that came from a friends collection when he died, so probably one of the early introductions when the first HU seed became available in the UK.

bunekeri.jpg (90.27 KiB) Viewed 2606 times

Unfortunately I have not yet got around to photographing G. horstii, though I have one under an HU number.

[esp_imaging]

I agree that 8 looks like a Lobivia

[Grimm]

The grafted cactus decided to dispel any remaining doubt: