Welcome Craig Fry!

[K.W.]

Hard times, hope you are doing well?

Long no pictures and contributions seen by you.

Kind regards and best wishes

K.W.

[C And D]

I have been posting some on the my Succulent thread
But I've been so busy, and then one thing after another, shows, sales, flu, too much work, blah blah

Now that the Cacti are coming back alive, I hope to post more
Here's what I got for now

Mammillaria schwarzii
These are not to easy to keep alive
I keep this on a Top shelf for heat and dryness,

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Echinocereus pulchellus sharpii
flower buds bursting through the skin

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[greenknight]

That's a very impressive Mammillaria schwarzii - how old is that thing?

The Echinocereus pulchellus sharpii is quite impressive too, but those are not so much of a challenge.

[C And D]

I've had this Mammillaria schwarzii for about 5 years
I had a couple before and they didn't last long.

Denise's Gynmocalycium ragonesii

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Some unstaged photos of interesting stuff

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Frailea castanea

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Denise's Gynmocalycium bodenbenderianum

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Neoporteria vexata

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Neoporteria occulta with many seedlings
This plant has the best smelling flowers among my N. occultas, some smell, some don't, some smell really nice!

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My Echinopsis hybrid "Mt. Girl"

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Not all is springtime fun
A Rat is back, after more than 6 months being Rat free
This was some of the first day's damage

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It enjoyed the poison on day 2

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[lei1201]

I love the flower of Echinopsis hybrid "Mt. Girl"!

[C And D]

Frailea magnifica
Not listed in Cactiguide for some reason

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Mammillaria theresae
This plant is pretty old

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slender flower tubes

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Denise's Copiapoa hypogaea
actually it's one of my 15 year old seedling that I gave her

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Maihueniopsis subterranea

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[C And D]

Another Echinopsis flush

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[toadstar]

[K.W.]

Good evening Craig and Denise,

as always very nice photos of fantastic plants!

1000 thanks!


The envious K.W.

[C And D]

Echinopsis haematantha var. hualfinensis

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Echinopsis chamaecereus
"Fire Chief"

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Rebutia krainziana

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My 2 different Mammillaria blossfeliana

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Another flush on the
Mammillaria theresae

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Maihueniopsis bonnieae, Major
First Flowers ever

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Turbinicarpus alonsoi

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[C And D]

I posted this on Steve's thread, but didn't want to post photos there, so reposted it here.

Mammillaria crucigera
One of my Mammillaria crucigera has many flowers every year and then develops sterile fruit, and the other one doesn't, which is weird.

The thing that is interesting is that the fruit come up only days (or weeks) after the flowers are finished.

When the 2 plants are crossed, the fruit takes months to appear and do not contain very many seeds.
The second plant doesn't flower freely, so I am not able to cross them very often.

I love to speculate, so my speculation is that the plant produces the sterile fruit when it doesn't get crossed with another plant, the red fruit is used to attract birds to eat the fruit, poke at the yummy looking flowers, and then eat some fruit on another plant, and hopefully do some cross pollination on the side.

An alternative scheme for pollination ?, since the flowers are so puny?

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[Steve Johnson]

I posted this on Steve's thread, but didn't want to post photos there, so reposted it here.

Mammillaria crucigera
One of my Mammillaria crucigera has many flowers every year and then develops sterile fruit, and the other one doesn't, which is weird.

The thing that is interesting is that the fruit come up only days (or weeks) after the flowers are finished.

When the 2 plants are crossed, the fruit takes months to appear and do not contain very many seeds.
The second plant doesn't flower freely, so I am not able to cross them very often.

I love to speculate, so my speculation is that the plant produces the sterile fruit when it doesn't get crossed with another plant, the red fruit is used to attract birds to eat the fruit, poke at the yummy looking flowers, and then eat some fruit on another plant, and hopefully do some cross pollination on the side.

An alternative scheme for pollination ?, since the flowers are so puny?

Wow -- those plants are amazing, Craig! Very interesting flowering and fruiting behavior, too. Have you been able to germinate the viable seeds yet? If so, are the seedlings old enough to see what they'll look like as they grow more and get bigger?

[C And D]

The Astrophytum caput-meduseae hybrid that I grafted last year is certainly an interesting subject.

Here are some new photos of it's progress

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The weak spines are similar to the spines on the seed pods of many Astrophytums

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[C And D]

Steve
The M. crucigera seeds germinate but have been to difficult for me to keep past a couple months.
I have the same problem with most of the Mamms for some reason.

[C And D]

Here is the other odd Astrophytum X I grafted last year

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