New user and already I want something!

[Compa]

New here and really want to identify some of my plants ... This one I got from my sister-in-law who lives north of Mexico City. The plant is native to the area. Mine has never bloomed but, as you can see from the photo, hers has! They really like to make little pups, quickly overflowing whatever pot you put them in. Sorry about it being in rather poor shape. It's been living on it's own for the last 2 years - since I moved back north. Ideas?

[vlani]

You have Mammillaria magnifica - the one with hooks. It is somewhat local, occurs in neighbor states but not around Mexico City itself.

The one with flower is Echinopsis oxygona and native to Argentina. It probably does just fine in Mexico.

[greenknight]

Echinopsis oxygona likes a little more water during the summer than most desert cacti, the area they come from is not really desert, as you can see here - http://www.cactusinhabitat.org/index.php?p=home&l=en

Give it a bigger pot, regular waterings during the summer, and a little fertilizer, it should do much better.

[Compa]

Thanks for the ID assistance! My sister-in-law indicated that the Echinopsis was native to her area ... guess you can't believe everything you hear! The other (with the spines) is from Guanajuato state if I recall correctly.

[greenknight]

Echinopsis oxygona does have a wide range - not just Argentina, also south Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay... nowhere close to Mexico, though. However, they've been very widely planted, they're adaptable, and very prolific - produce lots of seed as well as offsets - they may have gone wild there.

The one in my avatar picture is not E. oxygona, by the way, but E. ancistrophora - a smaller, less common species. I do have oxygona, too - mine haven't bloomed yet, either. Did get some buds last year, but they didn't develop for some reason.