mammillaria goodridgei var rectispina

mammillaria goodridgei var rectispina....
rectispina, from latin stright spine.
i have some m.goodridgei var rectispina with hooked central spines.
mh....

Yes, Maurillio, the rectispina term does seem to be innappropriate.

This also happens with my plants, some straight spines, some hooked. I believe that this species is really rather different from M. goodridgei, and whether it justifies only a subspecies classification is perhaps a question not yet properly answered.

My plants of M. rectispina (as it is sometimes called) are very much smaller than the plants that I have named as M. goodridgei. This latter plant grows in a manner mor elike M. hutchisoniana, although the flowers are rather different. M. rectispina stays small and round, and as yet have shown no sign of offsetting.

I believe that both plants originate from Isla Cedros, which is not frequently visited. Some seed of M. goodridgei has been offered recently by the AfM with a H.O. number (Heinz Otto). I have a couple of very young seedlings, but it is too early yet to say which form they will be.

If anyone has some knowledge or information on these two species, especially how they develop and grow with age, it would be interesting to add that to this thread.

Marion and rudi Schumacher, in the German Mammillaria journal (2010, issue 4, p. 200-207), describe their visit to Isla Cedros, where they found both M. goodrichii and M. rectispina. They write that they found both species growing beside each other. They state that M. rectispina is clearly different from M. goodrichii, and that M. rectispina looks more related to M. blossfeldiana. Habitat photos are included, the photo of M. rectispina shows a plant with straight as well as hooked central spines.
On Isla Natividad they also found M. goodrichii. Here the plants form groups, and the creamy flower with a darker midstripe is large.
On the spelling of M. goodrichii: This was the original spelling. Perhaps with the current ICBN rules it is allowed to change the spelling to M. goodridgii, but I do not see justification for that. I believe that most Germans keep writing M. goodrichii.

Wolter ten Hoeve, The Netherlands.

Thanks, Wolter. I have now had a good search and have found that issue. I had a memory of someone writing an article, but couldn't find it yesterday, I had thought it to be some time earlier than last year. Now all is clear.

I see that the plant wa first discovered by M.J.Goodridge, so it is logical that it should be called goodridgei, despite the original spelling. But as there isn't another plant with a similar name, no-one should be confused if there are two form sof the name.

I'm more than happy to recognise the two names, even if rectispina isn't always quite so "recti".

Goes to show how bad a lack of education can be: if our plants knew how to read some latin this wouldn't happen!

I have shown this picture before of a straight spined plant that is still in the collection of Len Evens from Coventry. It is a plant that came from habitat in the 70's, poss Lau collected. Over the years Len has produced 1000's of seed, some of which has been sold via the BCSS seed distubution. He has also grown many 100's of seedlings from the seed of this plant and these seedlings have produced BOTH hooked and straight spined plants.

thanks chris and wolt.
now all is clear.
this last picture is really a monumento, a colosseo!
bellissima.
grazie a tutti.

My two plants of M. goodrichii look exactly like the Len Evens plant, except of course that they have are smaller and have fewer offsets.
On the spelling of M. goodrichii: Heinz Dittberner wrote an article about it in the 1986 edition of the East German Mammillaria journal (called 'Informationsbrief') (on p. 27, 28). He concluded that the correct spelling is M. goodrichii, because Salm-Dyck published it in this way. Salm-Dyck was the person who made the first valid description of M. goodrichii. Salm-Dyck apparently believed that the person he honoured was Goodrich (the Latin text of Salm-Dyck is as follows: "Haec planta quam. Dom. Goodrich in Californiae insula Corros detexit, in hortis infeliciter periit"). So, Salm-Dyck honoured the wrong person!
According to Heinz Dittberner, the name M. goodrichii cannot be changed because it is not the result of a topographic or orthographic error (first part of article 60 of the ICBN: "60.1. The original spelling of a name or epithet is to be retained, except for the correction of typographical or orthographical errors").
I am not very familiar with the ICBN rules, so it could be that nowadays there are valid reasons to use the name M. goodridgii (to be correct, I think it should then be M. goodridgei, as Chris already wrote). For the time being, I will keep my plants under the name M. goodrich.

Wolter.

To quote...

David Hunt in Bradleya 2 / 1984, page 82.....
Under the modern rules of nomenclature, it is permitted to correct the original spelling ' goodrichii ', but we should adopt Scheer's earlier spelling and the more classical ' goodridgii ' in preference to the ' goodridgeri ' favoured by Britton and Rose and others.

And from the New Cactus Lexion ( Text ), page 185.....
M.goodridgii... Indeterminate : the original was probably an Island form of either M.dioica or M.hutchisoniana. Neotypification would threaten one or the other of these well established names.

I think Hunt ought to look at the AfM article and the photos in it, and then decide if this plant is indeterminate, and if so, then it would be good if he could explain his reasoning!

Personally, I can't see the similarity to M. dioica, but there is more similarity to M. hutchisoniana in my view.

If he is concerned about island forms then he ought to be consistant and lump M. insularis and M. boolii.

M. goodridgii has a flower more similar to M. hutchisoniana, but of course, I don't think a straight spined form of M. hutchisoniana has been reported from the mainland, although there are reports of straight spined M. dioica plants.

The trouble with plants from such a limited ecosphere, is that if there arrived there (or were isolated there), and have subsequently evolved, it might be difficult anyway to trace them back unless DNA can help us in this.

I suppose there could be two species, some interbreeding has brought them closer, but still get the wide extremes of variation. Equally well, just one species with wide variability.

I have no idea how that could be resolved!

I knew about the 1984 remark of David Hunt that "under the modern rules of nomenclature, it is permitted to correct the original spelling ' goodrichii ', but we should adopt Scheer's earlier spelling and the more classical ' goodridgii ' in preference to the ' goodridgei ' favoured by Britton and Rose and others".
To me the first part of this remark is useless, as long as Hunt does not explain which modern rule of nomenclature he is referring to! He should have stated which ICBN article permits such a correction! I have not yet found such an ICBN article, so I would be very interested to learn from an ICBN-expert which article would allow such a name change.
The second part of Hunt's remark is also useless to me, because he does not explain why "we should adopt Scheer's earlier spelling and the more classical ' goodridgii ' in preference to the ' goodridgei ' favoured by Britton and Rose and others". Scheer described the species as M. goodridgii, which cannot be correct if it were named after Goodridge (no wonder that Britton and Rose changed the spelling to the correct goodridgei).
Because Salm-Dyck had originally described it as M. goodrichii, thereby stating that it was named after a person carrying the name Goodrich, I think that one should stick to that first description, i.e. M. goodrichii.

About M. boolii and M. insularis: Chris, you are completely right! To me the differences are so small (are there any?) that I cannot tell which is which if there is no label attached.

Wolter.