Lophophora flower fest

Several of my plants are flowering right now, including many of the large undetermined Lophophora plants I bought earlier this spring. The plants were sold as Lophophora williamsii but body morphology and flower color suggest that many of them are actually Lophophora diffusa. Even though they flower, it is still difficult to determine the species of some of the plants conclusively, so I suspect them to be of hybrid origin. A handful of flower photos are included below.

Flowering Echinocereus reichenbachii

I have been growing Echinocereus reichenbachii in my coldhouse for a while but never seen any flowers until last week. Several of the plants flowered for the first time - an impressive sight.


Flowering Echinocereus reichenbachii

The flowers are excessively beautiful with their silvery pink to magenta petals, bright yellow anthers, and the fresh green stigma in the center of it all.


Echinocereus reichenbachii flower, close-up

The flowers seem rather variable both in the number and color of the petals. The flower pictured below has fewer, larger, and darker petals than the one above.


E. reichenbachii flower with a slightly darker hue

I outcrossed the flowers and hope for seeds next year.

Time-lapse video of a flowering Lophophora williamsii

I've been away on a short vacation and it seems my grafted Lophophora williamsii (SB 854; Starr Co, Tx) has spent its "lone time" wisely and grown three flowers.


Lophophora williamsii displaying three flowers

Even though the flowers were already quite open when I returned home, I decided to attempt a time-lapse video showing the flowers open fully. Unfortunately I forgot to disable the cameras autofocus function which gives the video a shaky appearance as the camera continuously changes focus slightly.



That being said, I'm impressed by the agility of the Lophophora stamens - they seem almost to be dancing around the style. A dazzling display of thigmotropic behavior is shown 50some seconds into the video; the stamens are disturbed and fold rapidly in around the style only to resume their perpetual wiggle shortly after. In contrast to this Epithelantha micromeris v. greggii stamens never seem to move during flowering.

I yet haven't managed to create a time-lapse video that is fully satisfying (the flower must be shown from bud to full bloom, the image must not shake/autofocus, no drop outs must occur in the stream of images, etc). I'll keep trying though, but I'll bet that when everything is set for the perfect time-lapse the shutter of my good old D70 gives up the ghost just before the shoot is finished ;-)

The photos for the time-lapse were shot at intervals of 15 seconds during a period of 160 minutes. The pictures are played back at a rate of 10 frames per second, i.e. the flowering is speed up by a factor of 150 resulting in a video running for 64 seconds.

Time-lapse video of a flowering Epithelantha micromeris v. greggii

Most of my coldhouse grown Epithelantha micromeris v. greggii (Cuesta la Muralla, Coahuila, Mexico) flowered big time this week. The plants were started from seed in 2004 and are flowering for the first time.


Flowering Epithelantha micromeris v. greggii

The small creamy, off-white flowers are not spectacular but still quite a beautiful sight, especially when several are blooming at the same time. The following time-lapse video shows a flower going from bud to full bloom.



The pictures used for the time-lapse were taken every 15 seconds over a two hour period. The pictures are played back at a rate of 10 frames per second, i.e. the flowering is speed up by a factor of 150 resulting in a 48 second video. The camera was placed on an old wooden floor resulting in a couple of "wobbly" sequences. The photos were taken using natural light only, the shifting light levels are caused by drifting clouds.

I attempted to cross-pollinate several of the plants and are hoping for seeds next year.

The power of grafting – 4th anniversary

Four years ago today, I grafted a tiny Lophophora williamsii (SB 854; Starr Co, Tx) seedling onto a robust Trichocereus pachanoi stock. The Lophophora scion has since grown to a width of 8 cm (~3.2'') and set 6 offshoots - the total width including the offshoots exceeds 13 cm (~5.1'').


Grafted Lophophora williamsii (SB 854; Starr Co, Tx)

The plant flowered throughout summer last year and many of the resulting seed pods are ready to be harvested. This season's first flower already appeared last week and the remains can be seen in the photo below.


Lophophora williamsii - ready for seed harvest

Last year's flowers were allowed to self-pollinate with minimal human intervention. Today I harvested all freely exposed fruits and left the rest to fully mature. So far the result seems good as the plant set a lot of seed, time will show if it is viable.


Dried Lophophora williamsii fruit

Many of the fruits have a dry and brittle husk that is easily ripped and some of them almost spilled open when harvested. I probably ought to harvest the seeds sooner and not allow the fruits to sit and dry on the plant for too long.


Ripped Lophophora williamsii fruit with seeds exposed

As mentioned the plant has set lots of (selfed) seeds: the initial harvest totalled 101 seeds and there are still a few fruits left on the plant to be harvested later.


101 home grown Lophophora williamsii seeds

For comparison you can check the posts on the same graft as one, two, and three years old.

Anaglyph and "cross-eyed" 3D Lophophora images

I've always been fascinated by anaglyphs and "cross-eyed" images and their stereoscopic 3D effects. To celebrate the 4th anniversary of my Lophophora williamsii (SB 854; Starr Co, Tx) graft I've created a couple of stereograms depicting the plant. So whisk out your blue and red filter glasses, open the picture below in a separate, maximized window, and enjoy the mesmerizing 3D effects ;-)


Anaglyph image - Lophophora williamsii graft

The next stereo pair is in the "cross-eyed" format. This type of stereogram can be difficult to view until you get the technique right. However the color rendering is bright and accurate, something not easily achieved with anaglyphs. Open the image in a separate, maximized window for the best viewing experience.


"Cross-eyed" image - Lophophora williamsii graft

While I was at it, I also made an anaglyph stereogram showing one of my Lophophora jourdaniana plants.


Anaglyph image - Lophophora jourdaniana

Starting Pelecyphora and Lophophora from seed, 2008

Yesterday I started this year’s first batch of seed. I’m usally sowing my cactus seeds at the beginning of March, but I’ve been otherwise occupied so I had to start a bit later than usual. 30 seeds each of the following species were sown:

• Lophophora williamsii (SB 418; Presidio County, Texas)


• Pelecyphora aselliformis (MMR 111.1; El Pedernal, San Luis Potosí, Mexico)

Lophophora williamsii, Shafter, Presidio County, Texas (photo from http://lophophora.info/)

I’ve been looking for L. williamsii originating from the Trans-Pecos region of Texas for a while, so I was pretty exited to find the SB418 seeds from Presidio County, Texas. I’m looking forward to see how these plants develop (and also bought a batch of these seeds to start in my coldhouse).


Pelecyphora aselliformis in habitat (photo from http://www.cact.cz/)

Pelecyphora aselliformis is a first for me. I’ve always wanted to grow this distinctive species but for some reason never got around to it until now.

The seeds were started as described in the post on growing cactus from seeds and are bought from Jan Martin Jecminek.

Most of the seeds I’m growing this year have been selected for their (alleged;-) cold hardiness and will be sown later in my unheated greenhouse.

Update - April 12, 2008
Prompted by Patrick's comment I decided to include more detailed information on how the germination progresses. 5 days after sowing the seeds one Lophophora and 8 Pelecyphora seedlings had germinated (L=1/P=8). After 6 days the numbers were L=6/P=14, after 7 days L=13/P=17, and today (day 8) L=15/P=20. This means that after 8 days the germination rates for the Lophophora and Pelecyphora seeds are respectively 50% and 67%.

Update - April 25, 2008
April 19 the germination numbers were L=16/P=24, on April 22 the Lophophora germination count had risen to 19, and today April 25 the counts still are L=19/P=24. So after approximately 3 weeks the germination rates for the Lophophora and Pelecyphora seeds are respectively 63% and 80%. It should be mentioned that one of the Lophophora seedlings died off but is still included in the germination count (as it actually started growing but didn't make it from there).

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine – plate 6061 (vol. 99, 1873), Pelecyphora aselliformis

I have just started my first batch ever of Pelecyphora aselliformis from seed and found this a good opportunity to post on plate 6061 from Curtis’s Botanical Magazine describing this peculiar species.

Curtis's Botanical Magazine has been published continuously since 1787 and is the longest running botanical periodical featuring color illustrations of plants. Below you’ll find what the magazine had to say on Pelecyphora aselliformis back in 1873 along with scans of the original illustration as well as the accompanying descriptive text.

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TAB. 6061.

PELECYPHORA ASELLIFORMIS VAR. CONCOLOR.

Native of Mexico.
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Nat. Ord. CACTEAE.-Tribe ECHINOCACTEAE.

Genus PELECYPHORA, Ehrb.; (Benth. and H. f. Gen. Plant., vol. i. p. 848).
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PELECYPHORA aselliformis; Ehrenberg in Bot. Zeit., vol.i. (1843) p. 737; Walp. Rep., vol. v. p. 822; Salm-Dyck Cact. in Hort. Dyck. cult. 5, et adn. 78; Först. Handb. der Cact. p. 257; Labouret. Monog. Cact. p. 148. Illust. Hortic., vol. vi. t. 186.
VAR. concolor, petalis concoloribus.

This remarkable and still very rare plant, has been long known amongst Cactus growers, and has in fact been in the trade for many years, having been imported by the brothers Tonel from Mexico, where it was said to have been found with the equally anomalous Cactaceous genus Anhalonium, (Ill. Hort., vol. xvi. t. 605 a). It was first published by Ehrenberg, from specimens grown in Berlin in 1843, but nothing was known of its floral character till Lemaire, in 1858, published in the “Illustration Horticole” quoted above, an excellent figure of it with a very full and interesting description.

The specimen here figured was forwarded by Mr. Justus Corderoy of Blewbury, early in June last, with the observation that the flower differs markedly in colour from that of Lemaire’s plant, which has an outer series of pale petals, whereas those of this are uniformly of a rose-purple, like the inner series of Lemaire’s. Though so unlike other Cacti in the sculpturing of the stem and its mammillae, Pelecyphora is not essentially different in these respects from Mammillaria ; the mammillae (which Lemaire regards as abnormal petioles and calls podaria) are vertically oblong, and crowned vertically with two contiguous rows of flat short horny cuspidate processes that overlap horizontally, and resemble the teeth of a comb ; these are analogous to the spines of a Mammillaria, but instead of being free and projecting, they lie flat, and are adnate to the ridge of the mammilla. This double series resembles curiously a wood-louse, with which insects the plant seems covered, and which fact has given it the trivial name of aselliformis.

DESCR. Stem tufted, dark green, shortly cylindric, three to four inches high, one and a half to two inches in diameter, often constricted about the middle, apex rounded. Mammillae spirally arranged, vertical, one third of an inch long, rhomboidal in a tranverse section at the middle, compressed laterally at the crown into a ridge, and contracted to a narrow base, woolly in the axils ; spines minute, short, flat, cartilaginous, linear, oblique, subfalcate, pungent, bifariously arranged on the crest of the mammilla, adnate to its surface with free tips. Flowers clustered towards the top of the stem, one and a half inch in diameter, sessile. Ovary small, naked, oblong, sunk in the axils of the mammillae. Perianth-tube short, free, naked, funnel-shaped ; segments in about four series, obovate-oblong ; acute, rose-purple. Stamens very numerous, inserted in the mouth of the tube, filaments slender, multi-seriate ; anthers minute. Style columnar ; stigmas with four erect lobes.---J D. H.
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Fig. 1, front and 2, side view of a mammilla ; 3, flower laid open:- all magnified.
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OCTOBER 1ST, 1873.

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The scans are courtesy of the Botanicus Digital Library, Missouri Botanical Garden and are free for non-commercial use, as long as attribution is provided.

Back to online articles.

Lophophora - experiments in cold hardiness, 2008

As mentioned in the previous post on Ariocarpus and Epithelantha I have experimented with coldhouse grown Lophophora since 2004.


Lophophora williamsii (SB 854; Starr Co, Texas), 2004

The Lophophora williamsii (SB 854; Starr Co, Texas) plants from the 2004 batch are still doing great. The plants are growing true to the type with a glaucous bluish-green epidermis. The one on the left flowered last year so I'll soon be able to produce seeds originating from plants that have survived several seasons in an unheated greenhouse. During winter all my Lophophora plants are wrapped in horticultural fleece - both as a protection against the cold but also to keep out hungry pests.


Lophophora plants wrapped in horticultural fleece

Some of the plants needed to be repotted before the upcoming growing season, for example these Lophophora williamsii (SB 854; Starr Co, Texas) plants from the 2005 batch.


Lophophora williamsii (SB 854; Starr Co, Texas), 2005

The plants started from seed in 2005 have grown to 2.5 - 3 cm (~ 1'') in diameter - with a bit of luck they might flower already this summer.


Uprooted Lophophora williamsii (SB 854; Starr Co, Texas), 2005

I never cease to be marveled by how large a fraction of a Lophophora plant that is actually growing underground. The plant pictured below has a crown that is approximately 1 cm high while the massive part of the taproot amounts to 4 times that and the full root system is more than 10 cm long.


Lophophora williamsii (SB 854; Starr Co, Texas) with exposed root, 2005

The past winter was mild - the coldest temperature registered inside the coldhouse was -5C (23F) - so even my Lophophora diffusa and Lophophora decipiens plants have all survived without any signs of damage.


Lophophora diffusa (Higuerillas, Queretaro, Mexico)

The Lophophora decipiens plants are very shriveled and look in dire need of a drink of water. They'll have to wait for a couple of more weeks in order for the weather to warm up.


Shriveled Lophophora decipiens

Last year I grafted a handful of Lophophora williamsii (SB 854; Starr Co, Texas) seedlings on frost hardy Opuntia compressa (Monmouth County, New Jersey) stock. The grafts seem to be doing well and I'll get back with more information on Opuntia grafting when I've done some more experiments.


Lophophora williamsii (SB 854; Starr Co, Texas) grafted on Opuntia compressa stock

Ariocarpus and Epithelantha - experiments in cold hardiness, 2008

Since 2004 I've experimented with growing Lophophora, Epithelantha, and Acharagma in an unheated greenhouse in Denmark. Last year I also added some Ariocarpus plants to the experiment, both seed grown and larger plants bought from Mesa garden. This winter has (as usual, I'm tempted to say) been damp but not very cold - the coldest temperature registered inside the coldhouse was -5C (23F) so most plants are doing great.


Ariocarpus fissuratus (JM122; Pecos County, Texas)

Last year I bought a couple of Ariocarpus fissuratus (JM122; Pecos County, Texas) plants from Mesa Garden. Coming out of winter they are still looking good and seem to have coped well with the cold.

The Epithelantha plants pictured below were started from seed in 2004 and look like they are large enough to start flowering soon.


Epithelantha micromeris v. greggii (Cuesta la Muralla, Coahuila, Mexico)

Apart from Epithelantha micromeris v. gregii I'm also growing the "regular" variety of Epithelantha micromeris. In my experience the regular micromeris is slightly slower growing than the greggii variety.


Epithelantha micromeris (SB1327; near Belen, New Mexico)

All of my Ariocarpus (including last year's seedlings) and Epithelantha plants made it through winter without damage. The next post describes how my Lophophora plants are doing after the winter.

Lophophora bargain

When visiting garden centers and flower shops I'm always checking out their cacti and succulents to see if they have any interesting plants. Usually they don't. This Easter my girlfriend and I were browsing a garden center looking for common hollyhock (Alcea rosea) to plant at our summerhouse when I eyed a trayful of Lophophora plants.


Six large Lophophora plants

The plants are quite large, 7.5 - 8 cm (~ 3'') in diameter, and are looking a bit bloated; they don't have the ancient, mature look and feel you would normally expect from plants this size.


Lophophora 7.5 cm in diameter

Despite their youngish appearance the plants are old enough to be sexually active (many have flower remains peering out of the wool).


Lophophora with flower remains

I don't think the garden center exactly knows what they are selling. The plants are mislabeled as "Lophophera williamsii" and when asked the people at the center had no idea where the plants were produced. Maybe that's why the plants are sold dirt cheap at 35 DKK apiece (approximately 7 USD or 4.5 EUR). Anyway, I ended up buying 9 plants and even though they are allegedly Lophophora williamsii I'm pretty convinced there's at least one L. diffusa among my plants.


Root-bound Lophophora cactus

The plants are extremely root-bound and growing in a peat based soil with (what looks like) blackish lava granules in the mix. After carefully removing the plants from their pots they were left to dry for a couple of days before being repotted.

Four of the plants will probably end up in my coldhouse, and I'm planning to dissect one of the plants to study its anatomy. She who must be obeyed is particularly fond of the last idea - she's already bitching about where to find room for all my new plants ;-)

You can see photos of some of the plants flowering in this post.

Mescaline on the Mexican Border

There seems to be an increased focus on the alarming Texas peyote situation. A couple of weeks ago the Houston Press published a mournful, in-depth article on the vanishing peyote populations and the implications to the Native American Church.


The inside of a peyote button tastes like a dirty raw potato, with a jalapeño backbite

The article features interviews with two (out of three remaining!) peyoteros, Mauro Morales and Salvador Johnson, describing their increasing problems in finding peyote due to root-plowing, over-collection and fencing of land for hunting.

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"There's some medicine, right there," he [Mauro Morales] says. It's a lone peyote button, about an inch in diameter, way too small to harvest. It'll be another five years before this peyote is mature. As he navigates the hostile flora, he points to three more small peyote plants, all of them too young to cut.

"I used to collect as much in a week as I now do in a month," he says. "I don't know what's going to happen to the medicine."

Morales almost never utters the word "peyote." For him, the small green-gray cactus is a sacrament with miraculous healing powers, hence his word for it: ­medicine.

What makes peyote different from just about any other cactus in the world is that it naturally produces mescaline, a psychedelic alkaloid that can induce hallucinations lasting for days.

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Cactus stickers and the occasional rattlesnake are all in a day's work for Mauro Morales when he goes hunting for peyote


Salvador Johnson used to be a full-time peyotero, but guiding hunting trips pays better these days

To protect against poachers getting in and deer getting out ranchers are increasingly fencing and patrolling their grounds. The ranchers' hands-off policy represents a dilemma for Martin Terry, the world's leading authority on peyote. On the one hand, protection against peyoteros will conserve the cactus. On the other, it prevents Indians from getting access to their sacred plant.

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"From the point of view of the plant, the only threat is overharvesting," he says. "The fences and personnel that protect ranch lands from would-be harvesters are the very opposite of a threat, as the protected populations of peyote inside those fences are the only healthy ones in South Texas."

Still, Terry is sensitive to the peyoteros and their way of life. He considers Mauro Morales a personal friend. He wants to make sure that Indians have access to their cactus, but that's getting harder and harder.

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The whole situation seems more and more like a gordian knot in dire need of a bold solution. The available natural peyote populations in Texas are over-harvested and not given time to replenish. At the same time many NAC members are opposed to cultivating the plant. One possible solution could be to import peyote from Mexico where the plants are still plentiful; but that might at the same time export the peyote conservation crises!

You can read more on the Texas peyote situation in these posts: The “Peyote Gardens” of South Texas: a conservation crisis?, Troubled times for Texas peyote harvesters, and In Deep South Texas, peyote harvest dwindling.

The full Houston Press article and related videos are available here: Mescaline on the Mexican Border, Video: Two Peyoteros on the Mexican Border, Video: Peyote, Breakfast of Champions, and Video: Peyote in Real de Catorce

The “Peyote Gardens” of South Texas: a conservation crisis?

In last month’s post on the troubled Texan peyoteros I referred to Anderson’s article on the peyote situation in Texas. Given the importance of this work, I saw it fit to bring it here in its full length - unfortunately I only have an old scan of the article, so the photos are a bit muddled but here goes...

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The "Peyote Gardens" of South Texas: a conservation crisis?

Cactus & Succulent Journal 67(2): 67-73 (1995)

Edward F. Anderson
Desert Botanical Garden,
1201 N. Galvin Parkway,
Phoenix, AZ 85008



More than a quarter of a million Native Americans use the peyote cactus (Lophophora williamsii) (Fig. 1) as a sacrament in a Pan-Native American religion called the Native American Church. This bona fide religion includes Native Americans from throughout the United States and Canada. Almost all of the peyote consumed in their ceremonies comes from the "peyote gardens" on the Mustang Plains in south Texas, which has been carefully documented by Morgan (1976, 1983) and by Morgan and Stewart (1984). Federal and Texas laws permit the collecting and use of peyote by Native Americans in their religious ceremonies.


Fig. 1 - Peyote (Lophophora williamsii) in habitat on Las Islas Ranch, Starr County, Texas.

The origins of the Native American Church are complex, and the reader can refer to detailed accounts of how the modern peyote religion arose in the late nineteenth century through the influences of traditional Native American ceremonies and Christianity in both Mexico and the United States (Anderson, 1980; Stewart, 1989). This paper describes the long relationship of Hispanic "peyoteros" in south Texas and members of the Native American Church, as well as the impact of many years of collecting peyote tops or "buttons" within the Tamaulipan Thorn Shrub vegetation. Many report that the peyote populations are greatly diminished in size (Morgan and Stewart, 1984; Jerry Patchen, pers. comm.; Salvador Johnson, pers. comm.; Jackie Poole, pers. comm.). Is the continued collecting of the plant for religious purposes leading to a serious conservation problem? Will peyote continue to be available to Native Americans in the foreseeable future?

I recently had the opportunity to return to south Texas, where I had collected and studied peyote populations more than 30 years ago. I met Hispanic peyoteros, visited their drying sites, and talked with leaders of the Native American Church. I also examined a peyote site, where plants had reportedly been harvested about five years earlier.

Peyote has a broad distribution throughout most of northern Mexico and across the Rio Grande into Texas (Anderson, 1980). Though peyote occurs in west Texas near Big Bend National Park, the most extensive area within the U.S. is from the mouth of the Pecos River southward and eastward nearly to Brownsville. The main area in which peyote has been harvested commercially is within Starr, Jim Hogg, Webb, and Zapata counties, primarily along the western Bordas Escarpment, the Aguilares Plain, and the Breaks of the Rio Grande (Morgan and Stewart, 1984). Over 90% of this land is privately owned and well-fenced.


Fig. 2 - Amada Cardenas, an Hispanic peyotero, who has collected peyote for Native Americans since 1933.

Hispanic peyoteros and some Native Americans have harvested peyote within this region for more than 100 years. Until the 1960's the main area for collecting the plant was in the more northern part, mostly in Webb County in the vicinity of Mirando City. In fact, the first peyoteros worked out of a small community just to the south of Mirando City called Los Ojuelos. Abandoned many years ago, the small town is now being rebuilt. Hispanic peyoteros and Native Americans developed a strong relationship, which has persisted to the present. The home of Amada Cardenas (Fig. 2), who is the oldest living peyotero, is located at the edge of Mirando City. It has become an important religious site for Native Americans who visit the area, with peyote meetings held in either a hogan or tipi. Amada, now 90 years old, was born in Los Ojuelos and became a peyotero in 1933