Mixed results on the internet. CactiGuide has it as Ferocactus hamatacanthus, other sites all over the place. I sure there is a good reason? What is it?
It was placed for convenience into Ferocactus, where it clearly does not belong. The trend has been a reduction of small genera and moving the species into larger genera. But hamatacanthus is not a member of any reasonably defined genus Ferocactus. I prefer to still use Hamatocactus, for lack of anything more sensible.
I did a quick (and not especially thorough) google search looking for any paper that did a molecular phylogenetic study that included Hamatocactus but didn't find anything. When someone does a DNA study we will probably get a good answer. Short of that I did find this paper from 2000 dealing with morphological characters in Thelocactus. They concluded Hamatocactus should be retained. It also has a key to Thelocactus which may be useful to some.
mine actually was. I have a T. setispinus as well. It's an awesome plant with great flowers. Mine got bad sunburn last year tho, so I dont know if it's going to flower for me or not this year..
Here's to you, all you insidious creatures of green..er I mean cacti.
I got one of those guys at Lowe's last evening, ID'd as the same. No way is it a Fero; I'm just hoping it's the Thelo. setispinus because I lost mine a while back. Besides those horrid strawflowers, which usually deter me from buying a cactus, it had several good buds on it. So we'll wait and see what shows up. Meanwhile, neither Anderson nor the Preston-Mafham dictionary mention v. hamatacanthus. Anderson does show a former/aka classification as Echinocactus, with Hamato. & Fero. as secondaries. Both Anderson and P-M now list it as Thelocactus.
Catch a falling star--but don't try it with a cactus!
The one pictured in the first post above is definitely hamatacanthus, in my opinion. "var. hamatacanthus" is used to distinguish from a localized population called "var. sinuatus." It does look to me that setispinus and hamatacanthus are closely related, but those appearances can be deceiving.
Be careful what you wish for. If you keep complaining that Ferocactus and Thelocactus and Hamatocactus are all confused and mixed up they might just throw them all in together
Seriously, the sooner someone comes up with a taxonomy that isn't based on how wide and flat the central spine is, the better.
tumamoc wrote:Well whatever it is, it's almost time to repot it .
Since it's from Altman's I would suggest sooner rather than later, although for this years crop I have been lazy. I need to get them into some real soil, but I couldn't help buying a few of them. the M. mystax from Altman's has been in bloom almost since I got it.. til now.
Here's to you, all you insidious creatures of green..er I mean cacti.
Well, crap. Mine bloomed while I was out of town and I didn't get to see. I tried to necropsy a spent flower, but it was kind of gooey. It looked like it had red centers, but hard to tell. The next buds won't be ready for a while. It has one flower that looks pretty bad, but still could possibly open again.
Well it bloomed again and I was out of town again. But I had a spotter this time, and it does have a red center. So does that mean I have setspinus? I thought hamatacanthus had solid yellow flowers, but maybe it's not that simple. It's not that important now, I guess, since I just wanted the red centers.