mystery wild cactus growing in north texas almost Oklahoma

[Maddiesicky]

hello! i found this beautiful clumping cactus growing on our property! i found a few babies but here are the big clumps! its beautiful! i have never seen anything like them growing in the region and i wonder if they are native. they look like some sort of mammillaria. does anyone know what they are?

[kak tus]

Looks like Mammillaria longimamma to me.

[Grimm]

It does look a lot like Mammillaria longimamma, also known as Dolichothele longimamma, although it's not meant to be native to Texas.

D.longimamma has large(ish) yellow flowers quite different to "normal" Mammillarias, and a big taproot. It's not meant to be too common in cultivation anymore, although I think it was once popular.

[keith]

how about Escobaria missouriensis

[Grimm]

how about Escobaria missouriensis

Seems much more likely, especially being native to the area! Nice plant, I've not come across it before.

[greenknight]

Escobaria missouriensis is widespread but easy to miss, as it's low-growing and inhabits grasslands. I found some in-habitat photos, including a large clump, certainly does look like what you found: https://www.swcoloradowildflowers.com/Y ... iensis.htm

[DaveW]

Not sure of it's identity, but note the grooved tubercles on third image down of the Escobaria missouriensis in Spence's picture. I cannot make these out in the original picture? The Dolichothele group of Mammillaria's do not have grooved tubercles, but the problem is Dolichothele is Mexican, therefore it probably is E. missouriensis as it grows in Oklahoma and the grooves on the top of the tubercles are just not obvious in the picture?

http://www.llifle.com/Encyclopedia/CACT ... souriensis

[tumamoc]

They're not terrible quality photos, so I'm wondering how every single grooved tubercle can be hidden from view.

[Grimm]

They're not terrible quality photos, so I'm wondering how every single grooved tubercle can be hidden from view.

You can see a couple, there's one almost central in the first photo. I guess that the light saturation is too high, or the angle of the light was off, or the camera's sensor freaked out or something...

[tumamoc]

You can see a couple, there's one almost central in the first photo. I guess that the light saturation is too high, or the angle of the light was off, or the camera's sensor freaked out or something...

Yeah. I guess I thought a few of the grooves were spines or their shadows. There are a definitely few in that top image:

20180331_180416-1024x1365.jpg (107.34 KiB) Viewed 769 times

[greenknight]

Enlarging the picture really helped, you can see them much more easily. It's not a feature that's easy to make out in a small photo. Note that on the page I linked to the grooves really show up clearly only in the third photo, which is an extreme close-up.

[DaveW]

Yes, certainly no Mammillaria with those grooved tubercles. E. missouriensis looks the correct identification.

[Maddiesicky]

wow yall are amazing thank you so much unfortunately i had to dig them up as our land lord was going to kill them im going to relocate them. the roots are pretty impressive. a lot deeper than i was expecting. the angle doesnt do justice but they are really long!