Coryphantha growing 1km from my house

Hi everybody !

Maybe some Coryphantha lovers are around here, in that case maybe they will be able to help me with this population of Coryphantha growing just near myplace, in central Mexico, 50 km East of Mexico City.

If not, wel just enjoy the pictures, taken in the wet season, so full of grass and flowers. I love this kind of conrast.

About the names, i was thinking about Coryphantha georgii, Coryphantha connivens or Coryphantha delaetiana, but all these species are supposed to grow a lot norther .. any ideas ?











have a nice day !
Damien

Nice plants, and photos too. Pity you missed flowers. Keep monitoring the area. I have no strong suggestions about the species so far.

Hi,

You know the Flora del valle de Mexico? There are keys in spanish to identify the wild Cactus (and other wild plants) of Mexico city, the east of Estado de Mexico and the south of Hidalgo. Using the keys in that book your Coryphantha looks like Coryphantha cornifera. But I'm not 100% sure.

p.s. the white/pinkish flowers on your first photo probably are Oxalis jacquiniana

In the area about 50kms east of Mexico City you might find three Coryphantha species - C. ottonis, C. pycnacantha and C. elephantidens.

I think that your plant is C. ottonis, though it isn;t as heavily spined as I have seen it in Guanajuato and Durango. According to the book on Coryphantha by Dicht and Luthy, that weaker spination is typical of forms of C. ottonis that grow near Mexico City.

I went wrong in the key in the flora del valle de Mexico, because I didn't see any glands at the base of the grooves. But now I think I can see the glands on your photo.

Thanks for your ideas and the mexican identification key, this is gonna be helpfull !

wel, abut my plant, i think this might be a C. ottonis, but the two central spines of my plants might not correspond to the desciption of a normal c. ottonis ...

According to Dicht and Luty, C,. ottinis is described as solitary, globose to short cylindrical, axils woolly with glands, aeoles round, white woolly in youth, radial spines 8-12, th eupper ones somewhat thinner, 9-11mm long, central spines 1-3, rarely 4, the lower sometimes curved downwards, upper ones (2-3) pointing upward.

In the comments, they say that southeast of the distribution area (Puebla, Tlaxcala, Mexico, Hidalgo) forms with sparser spination and only 1-2 central spines can be found.

So what is "normal"?

Normal to me just means the popualtion of plants from which the species was first collected, and thereby introduced into cultivation. In my experience, "normal" is not what you find in habitat - where you find all kinds of variations.