Mammillaria leucantha

M.leucantha Boed. in Kakteenkunde (1): 233. 1933, with fig.
Simple or rarely clustering, with stout napiform root, stem globular or somewhat elongate-globular, up to 3.5cm. in diameter in examples seen;
Tubercles about 7mm. long and 2mm. thick; axils sparsely woolly and with fine white bristles 5mm. long.
Central spines 3-4, up to 5-6mm, long, dark amber-yellow, all hooked except the fourth when present;
Radial spines about 18, up to 5-6mm. long, somewhat thinner than the centrals, very thin acicular, white, often the upper tipped brownish yellow.
Flowers 15mm. long, white; fruit unknown; seed dark grey-brown, pitted.
MEXICO: San Luis Potosi, near Soledad Diez Gutierrez, growing in cracks in near-vertical rock wall in the hills, Viereck. Specimen not
known to have been preserved.
One of the complex of Stylothelae forms from around the city of San Luis Potosi. Its combination of smooth straight radial spines, more than
one central and pale flowers lead me to suppose that it is closest to M. knebeliana and M.haehneliana though these have red-brown seeds and only" one hooked central. I have yet to see a cultivated specimen labelled M. leucantha with the three hooked centrals required by the description; usually they have only one, I saw what I thought must be M.leucantha in the hills near Soledad Diez Gutierrez in August 1971, but this also had only a solitary central
From "The Journal of the Mammillaria Society"  Vol. XII   n.2    April 1972






Mammillaraia leucantha
Seeds from Mesa Garden - MG 729
MG 729 - pubescent yellow spines

Mammillaraia leucantha
no data