Mammillaria vergelensis n.n. ??

Hi, I keep seeing in various catalogues the name of M. vergelensis n.n. from El Vergel, Durango.
Does anyone know what this is close to of existing "approved of" species? I have seen a photo, but its difficult to see exactly what it is, though it looks close to sinistrohamata to me.
Help if you can, please.

Hello Chris,
M. vergelensis n.n. P 358 was found by J. Piltz (from the nursery) at El Vergel, Durango. He thought that it was a new specie. A few years later Milan Zachar was on the same place and found these plants which he gave the name "duwei" In my opinion it is very related with duwei (same flowers), but there are some differences in spination. Here's a picture from it and if you want this plant you only have to wait for a month.

Thanks Hugo,
I hadn't realised it was a Piltz plant. Your photo is of a very nice plant, rather darker centrals and whiter radials than the only other one I had seen, in a photo on Mammillarias.net. I think this looks rather different to duwei, obviously in spine colour, but also in the number and length of the radials, and certainly to my seed grown plant of M. nana 'trichacantha' SB21 about which I have my doubts as the central spines were so short. I shall look forward to it finding its way into the boot of my car! and maybe also a "proper" nana as well.

Hello Chris,
Trichacantha doesn't look like nana. It's another plant. You bought a plant which had the name nana (trichacanta SB 21) and which doesn't resemble to nana. Almost every synonym have it's own differences, sometimes small and neglectable, but sometimes many differences. That's why I'll never be a lumper.
Oh and btw, in Germany nana is called monancistracantha

Hi Hugo,
OK, monancistracantha it shall be. I shall have to investigate my trichacantha further! I grew it from Mesa Garden seed, named as nana (trichacantha), and Steven Brack is usually correct. Good to learn, thanks.
However, I have just been looking up the description of trichacantha, and it doesn't really match my plant. So whatever I have it probbaly isn't any of these, just an odd stylothelae form. Hmmmm....

Hello Chris,
This is the MZ plant I mentioned above. It's flowers and global view are the same as the vergelensis P 358, but MZ (Milan Zachar) prefers to name it duwei

This is my plant, grown from SB21 seed.

It doesn't conform properly to the description of trichacantha, in:

• the colour of the central spine - yellow not reddish to chestnut brown
  
• 3 centrals, pale yellow, lower one only hooked, not 2 as described
  
• central spines certainly not 12mm, closer to 5-8mm
  
• a few more radial spines,about 20 rather than 15-18, slightly pubescent
  

I don't seem to have a photo of it in flower, though it has flowered regularly, and from memory it is a smallish pale yellowish flower. And having just repotted it, it has quite tuberous roots. It is in a 7cm square pot. And compared with the description of M. nana it has fewer radials,
So any help on identification of this would be very helpful. It might just be some form of crinita of course, which because it is so variable might well be difficult to identify with a specific name, and the seed that was supposed to be SB21 could well have had some intruder.

Hello Chris,
We were talking about vergelensis and now we end up with trichacantha
I have the description from Reppenhagen's book about trichacantha and will put it online as soon as possible. He mentions 2-4 central spines, 8-10 mm long , the upper one hooked and 4-6 mm long, brown to dark brown. Radial spines: 10-15. Flowers are creamy white. I'm gonna take a picture of my trichacantha who's also SB 21, to compare. I think we got a real trichantha here, except for the color of the central spines...

Description of trichacantha is done. You can find it at beschreibungen/descriptions.
My plant is exactly the same as yours, Chris and I had a closer look and I saw that the centrals at the bottom of the plant becoming darker. Maby Reppenhagen saw an older plant than ours were the centrals were brownish. But if you see our trichacantha next to the later described tezontle, there are a lot of similarities in flower, spination etc.

Thats very interesting Hugo, about the similarity with tezontle. I have several of these, no field numbers, from a Czech grower, and have both yellow spined and browned spined versions. The yellow spined ones look quite similar, although a much older plant of tezontle seems to grow rather tighter and smaller than SB21, but that might be just that one plant.
I was comparing to also with my moeller-valdeziana ML138 that is now subsumed into crinita, apparently, and there are a numberof simlarities here as well.
I'm not sure I shall understand the Stylothelae very well, many plants with small differences, all to easy a solution to just say "crinita", but mabe that's right - I know the Fitz-Maurices would probably say so.
Thanks for all the investigation work!

I bought this plant as M. vergelensis n.n. from the Piltz nursery. It isn't quite like the plant that is pictured earlier in this thread, but I guess its older. In particular, the central spines are significantly different from any others of the Stylothelae that I have seen. As the second picture shows very clearly, there are two central spines, BOTH hooked. The radial spines are pubescent which matches, but the flower petals are not as pointed as duwei. I am assuming in what I say below that I did buy a true vergelensis!

and a bit closer in....

I'd be very interested in comments on this plant, as I have not personally seen duwei with more than one spine, although the description does say 0-1-2-4 and it implies that all central spines are hooked. This would suggests that it is related, as there aren't many Stylothelae with multiple hooked spines.
But it seems different, and its location at El Vergel, Durango is a long way from the reported habitats of duwei, which are in the states of Guanajuato and Queretaro. M. nana, under which duwei is sometimes placed as a subspecies, is from these same two states plus San Luis Potosi.
I thought that when a plant population showed significant differences from any others, and there was geographical separation, then it should at least be defined as a subspecies, or indeed, if there are insufficient similarities to other named and known species, then a good species. Now I am not a botanist, so I can't really compare with authority, but from what I can see and understand I would suggest that it should not be lumped into duwei, at worst kept as a second subspecies of nana, and at best as a good species in its own right.
What do others think?

Hello Chris,
The plant on the first picture was also bought at Piltz nursery, so I assume that I have also the true vergelensis.
I discussed this plant with Rogozinski and he thinks that it is a duwei form. In my opinion it differs from duwei, but I'm no botanist either.

I sowed m. Vergelensis n.n. P358 in 2000

April 2007



To-day

Here is another nmae to throw into the mix, M.piltzii n.n. The plant below was sent to me my a friend who had grown it from seed from Piltz.

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a view of it's big chunky root's



Walter helix tells me it can also be found under the name of M.paradensis and that these palnts have yellow or brown spines.

My apologies for the photograph, but it was rather dark and I had the wrong lens on my camera, so depth of focus was terrible!

However, you can see enough, I hope, of this plant , which came to me from Hugo as M. paradensis, to see that is it almost the same as vergelensis. I also have the Milan Zachar plant pictured above, and to my eye there is very little difference. There is some differenc ein central spine numbers, but these are variable in many related species, and hardly enough to create a separate species for!
I have simply called these Mammillaria nana ssp duwei fma. paradensis...fma. vergelensis...etc. as I do just think they are geographic forms of the same species.

Hi Chris,
I view this group of plants has part of a larger M.nana duwei complex that have variable spines colours and numbers, sometimes no spines, see below.

Lau 1577


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