Precocious little plant! - M. pennispinosa ssp. nazasensis SB489

I sowed this seed on 13th June 2010, so it has yet to see it's second birthday, yet it is blooming it's little heart out. The pot size is 5cms.

The seed came from the BCSS seed distribution in 2010, and I was very surprised to see the pink colour of the flower, as my larger plants have much paler, mostly cream flowers. To me it looks closer to pennispinosa with its feathery spines, but it is a young small plant, so it might become more true to its name given time. Perhaps!

Nice Chris! Such a small plant and already in flower. Spines indeed look more like 'pennispinosa'.

Wiebe



M. pennispinosa ssp nasazensis SB489


M. pennispinosa (Rowl 4394)

Interesting that your nazasensis also has pinkish flowers. The description calls for cream or yellow, but I suspect that it was based on limited samples - as usual!

I'm also just waiting for the one flower on a small plant of M. thomsonii n.n. which is related to these plants. It was from Pilz seed, also sown in 2010, but on 24th March, so it might just open a flower. This plant (and my two seedlings) is smaller than either pennispinosa or nazasensis. I have a couple older plants of this species, and they too are nicely in bud.

It's incredible how they manage to push out a few flowers at such a small size. Lovely plants, Wiebe.

The wesather is about to change, and I doubt if I shall see the flowers before I leave on my trip, so I thought I'd just post two related species as they are today.

First is my older M. brachytrichion in a 12cm pot. This plant lacks central spines. I have another smaller one, still single headed, which came from the same seed.



Then my older M. thomsonii PN498, from Arroyo de Caballo, Durango, in a 5cm pot, probably 6 yrs old.



and my seedling from 2010 sowing from Pilz seed, also in a 5cm pot.



It is interesting that the Pilz seedling has pennispinose radial spines, but the older plant doesn't. I wonder if this remains as the plant ages?

in mammillaria thomsonii by ento...
https://mammillaria.forumotion.net/t1601-sowing-in-may-2011

all spines of thomsonii are pubescent.
in your seedling from 2010 all spines are pubescent..

in the older thomsonii PN 498 all the spines are not pubescent....

is there something that you know, that i don't know??

I don't think I know anything really about these thomsonii plants, since they are not really described anywhere. I have met Brian Thomson, after whom the plant is named. He is an Englishman who worked at Cante in San Miguel de Allende. I have tried to get him to tell me the key distinguishing features, and what, apart from the size, really distinguishes it from pennispinosa and pennispinosa ssp. nazasensis. But as yet, I have not been successful. I must try harder.

It is possible that the PN498 is yet another variant of this species.

My current thesis is that there is one single species - pennispinosa. This has a number of forms (maybe subspecies), which are nazasensis, brachytrichion, and thomsonii, and maybe others as well. A splitter might want to make separate species out of these, but they all grow within reasonable distance of each other, have similar flowers, but with varying spination, mainly in pubescence. I add in brachytrichion here, because it too is a plant from Durango, and I don't think it is close to M. mercadensis with which it sometimes is allied.

However, pubescence in other species is quite variable - look at crinitia, puberula and others....

I attach a Google Earth map of some of the key locations, not very far away from each other, though M. thomsonii is perhaps the most hidden.

are these the places in which you'll go next week?

No, I was there in 2010, and got to find pennispinosa and nazasensis. I didnt have enough time to look for brachytrichion, and in 2010, I didn't know where thomsonii comes from. The locations for pennispinosa and nazacensis with CD10/ numbers are mine.

On this year's trip we go into Hidalgo, then west through Queretaro to eastern Guanajuato (albiflora etc) and then into SLP, NL, Tamaulipas and southern Coahuila.

molto bene...
i migliori auspici......

we'll wait for your reportages.

I consider M. pennispinosa as a separate species and M. nazasensis / M. thomsonii / M. brachytrichion as forms of M. sinistrohamata and/or M. mercadensis. The seed of M. pennispinosa is so completely different from the seeds of the others, that I strongly doubt that M. pennispinosa is related to the others. M. pennispinosa is at a distance of almost 100km of the nearest of the others. The hooked-spined plants at La Cuchilla and El Amparo (M. gasseriana/M. viescensis) might be the closest relatives of M. pennispinosa, although their locations are still 80km or more from the pennispinosa location (and the seeds are different). Yet, the type location of M. pennispinosa is in SW Coahuila (but nobody has been able to find the plants there anymore). This type location is close to M. gasseriana / M. viescensis.
My mature plants of M. nazasensis SB 489 (MG 831.2) do have very pubescent spines, but interestingly, plants grown from seed of plants at Minas Navidad (habitat photo attached) do not show these pubescent spines!
Wiebe, are you sure about the ID of your SB 489 plant? Did you grow it from seed purchased from Steven Brack (Mesa Garden)?
Like Chris wrote, pubescent spines are not uncommon in crinita-related plants, e.g. M. duwei also has those pubescent spines.

Wolter ten Hoeve.

Wolter, I find your comments very interesting, especially since of the two species you mention, I have only seen M. nazasensis from one location, on the road to Minas Navidad, and M. pennispinosa near Bermejillo. I have SB489 and also TL773, though this last is still young from seed. Of M. pennispinosa I have plants from 5 different locations.

I must get the AfM Loose Leaf pages which have the seed analyses!

There clearly is some significant taxonomic work to be done here. Until then, I had better keep quiet and grow a few more forms of M. nazacensis for comparison. I have enough of pennispinosa.

My SB 489 was sown 12 years ago. Seeds came from Ludwig Bercht.

Wiebe

Hi Wiebe,

I bought my nazasensis seeds directly from Mesa Garden in 2003. My plants are in bud now, I will make some photos in the coming weekend.

Wolter.

Attached are some photos of one of my greenhouse plants of SB 489 (first 2 photos, pubescent spines) and of a seedling plant of the Minas Navidad plants (last 2 photos, no pubescent spines). I have some more plants of each taxon and in both cases there are plants with either yellowish centrals or with reddish centrals.
Woody Minnich attaches the name M. sinistrohamata to his Minas Navidad plants (WM 5739).

Wolter ten Hoeve.