Midwestern Escobaria vivipara or missouriensis

[westfork]

A friend found this cactus last week while fixing fence on his ranch and tossed it in the back of his gator. Later his son saw it, potted it up, and offered it to me since I had been asking about similar species in the area. From its location by the Missouri River in southeastern South Dakota it has to be either an Escobaria (Pelecyphora) vivipara or missouriensis. With the central spine I am thinking vivipara since missouriensis "usually" doesn't have a central spine, but I have never seen a vivipara with spines this long before. In any case, I would like to reproduce it and help re-establish the population. He has never seen one before and it was probably in the fenceline started from bird droppings with seed from some hidden population.

Anyone familiar with the local Escobaria population in Siouxland?
Does this look similar to the E. vivipara in western Minnesota?
I assume this will not be self-fertile.

Ranch viv 1 6-23-2023 sm.jpg (114.02 KiB) Viewed 361 times

ranch viv 2 6-23-2023 sm.jpg (131.15 KiB) Viewed 361 times

ranch viv 3 6-23-2023 sm.jpg (137.43 KiB) Viewed 361 times

[MrXeric]

I am leaning towards vivipara. You'll have to wait for flowers; pretty sure missouriensis never has pink flowers. If you're lucky, those dried flowers were pollinated and you'll get fruit. The two species have very distinct fruit colors (missouriensis has bright scarlet colored fruits while vivipara fruits tend to be greenish, sometimes blushing to a dull reddish-brown).

[westfork]

Thanks for the reply. I am hoping it was pollinated, perhaps there was another hidden somewhere nearby. On missouriensis I have, the dried flowers tend to look somewhat pale. These are much darker so I am thinking the flowers were pink.