As Anttisepp says the the minor differences in flower shape led Curt Backeberg to propose the genus Brachycalycium for it along with its variety tilcarense, but this was not generally accepted and most consider it just a normal Gymnocalycium. "The very short flower-tube, the urn-shaped flower a...

The chlorophyll deficient red Gymnocalycium "Hibotan" was a seedling a few days old grafted at matchhead size before it died. All succeeding ones are pups or offsets off the original then repeatedly grafted, so all are simply clones of the original. Obviously since then many others rogue s...

Not just China as EBAY shows, just put "rare" on a plant even if we consider it common and it sells for stupid prices. You also get some shows fanatics with chequebooks who will only buy large perfect plants solely for winning trophies. They will never grow from seed or bring on plants thr...

I've grown mine in cold old UK for years since I bought it as a small seedling in the 1960's. However its growing in the greenhouse. No great trouble in cultivation since they are related to Ferocactus even though looking very dissimilar. Should grow OK on a windowsill if they get plenty of light. A...

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In the UK there used to be a required possession time of a year before entering in shows to prove you could grow not kill it. Also mainly to stop those with big chequebooks going out and purchasing a prizewinning plant and putting it in the next weeks show to gain trophies. However this proved unenf...

Thanks for the clarification Ian.

The Chinese too. A few years ago one published a picture of quite a few bare root obviously just recently collected Aztekium valdezii on another Forum which had just been described and was amazed at the negative reaction he got, therefore quickly disappeared. Different countries have different opini...

Possibly they put that function on their website at the start but never removed it later if they wanted no more pictures? Seems to be Cactus Art (Cactus-art-biz) in Italy that owns Llifle, so you may be able to contact them through their email in the links below. https://www.whois.com/whois/llifle.c...

Covid and the long time changing the board did not help. We tend to be creatures of habit and once our previous habits are interrupted and we have found new ones meantime we tend not to go back. We could not hold our cactus branch meetings due to Covid in the UK as the hall was shut, therefore we al...

Hi Ian, The generally accepted spelling seems to be as you say "andersoniana", although Llifle gives that for the basionym whilst referring to it as andersonii in the text? The only legitimate reason for changing the original name is if it is obviously a spelling mistake or incorrect gende...

Agree with Xeric and Bryan. Not too sure though Matucana madisoniorum has a specific spineless form since most initially have spines in new areoles. However it is a plant that as it grows does shed some if not most of its old spines, which is unusual for most cacti but normal in its case, often just...

Had a look and had to laugh when I found these cultivation instructions online! If only growing cacti was that simple and prescriptive? "Cipocereus Bradei needs 0.8 cups of water every 9 days when it doesn't get direct sunlight and is potted in a 5.0" pot." Seriously I would have thou...

Yes, one of the ottonis group since they all look pretty similar. Quite a few different specific names have been created in the past and many now dumped into synonymy, depending if you are a "splitter" or "lumper". But you can check against the synonyms given in this link. http:/...

If you are in the USA Daiv runs a similar specialist bookshop to Keith. https://exoticplantbooks.com/about/?msclkid=62599f0cbe7411ecb248478705bfe133 He lists some Kaktusy specials but I can't see the Lophophora one but as Aiko says you can always ask the booksellers to keep an eye out for a new or s...