Saturday, November 29, 2008

Christmas cacti

The subject line is sordidly misleading as this post has nothing to do with Schlumbergera, Zygocactus or the likes ;-) On the contrary it describes a handful of extreme xerophytes that I treated myself to as an early yuletide present.

I'm just home from Charlotte, North Caroline where I had made a last minute arrangement with Mesa Garden to deliver some plants and seeds to the hotel I stayed at. As usual Steven's plants are hard grown and exquisite.

Ariocarpus fissuratus (SB 403; Crockett Co, Texas)
Ariocarpus fissuratus (SB 403; Crockett Co, Texas)

The A. fissuratus plants are nice and plump – the diameter at the root neck slightly exceeds 2.5 cm (1'').

Ariocarpus fissuratus (SB 403; Crockett Co, Texas)
Ariocarpus fissuratus (SB 403; Crockett Co, Texas)

I hope the A. retusus plants will survive in the coldhouse. As far as I can tell the plants from Cuesta la Muralla are some of the most cold tolerant of this species.

Ariocarpus retusus (SB 310; Cuesta la Muralla, Coahuila)
Ariocarpus retusus (SB 310; Cuesta la Muralla, Coahuila)

I only have a few Leuchtenbergia plants but I have grown increasingly fond of this interesting species. This particular variant is alleged to have a branching habit and grow to a height of 1 m.

Leuchtenbergia principis (GL 770; Sierra de la Paila)
Leuchtenbergia principis (GL 770; Sierra de la Paila)

There is always room for one more Epithelantha in your collection so I don't think the E. bokei plants need further explanation ;-)

Epithelantha bokei (SB 416; Brewster Co, Texas)
Epithelantha bokei (SB 416; Brewster Co, Texas)

The plants are now home with me and have been potted up. We are all eagerly awaiting the happy, sunny days of spring when the plants can be moved to the coldhouse.

Apart from the above mentioned plants I also bought a selection of seeds including Lophophora decipiens. I'm interested to see what the resulting plants look like – the description in the seed catalog is limited to an intriguing “powdery grey”.

3 comments:

  1. great...Christmas cacti
    i think you are very lucky

    ReplyDelete
  2. L. principis up to 1m tall? Wow never heard of it! I really wonder what it looks like

    ReplyDelete
  3. I got the information on the height of the L. principis from the Mesa Garden plant catalog (relevant snippet included below) - I hope it is accurate but it will take a while before I can illustrate it with photos of my own plants, though ;-)

    Leuchtenbergia, /3,6,8,13,16/ long tubercles, deep taproot
    523-principis /17/ Parras, Coah, huge yellow flower in late summer $4.00
    523.4-principis GL770 Sra de la Paila, to 1 m tall, branching $4.00
    523.5-principis SB566 Hipolito, Coah, shiny yellow fl $3.50

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