Mammillaria egregia

I received this plant as M. egregia but to me it more looks like 'ordinary' M. lasiacantha. Would like to hear your opinion.

Wiebe

I'd agree with you, Wiebe, as the spines of ssp. egregia are supposed to be very neat and flat to the plant body. Your plant's spines stick out rather more than ssp. egregia is supposed to do.
In his latest reduction, Hunt has scrapped all the subspecies of lasiacantha because of the difficulty in really separating them just on spines, as there are a variety of forms.

Thanks Chris. I was not aware of the lumping by Hunt of all the ssp into one (variable) species.

My personal view is that sometimes lumping is overdone. One of these days someone will give a clear set of rules for separating one (or more) population(s) as a subspecies. I know that some degree of fuzziness is only to be expected in plants, as many are intrinsicly variable. But, to help we poor amateurs understand some botanists decisions, and to get some order into classification, at the very least some clear framework should exist.
I'd hope, as botany is an established discipline, that it does, but it doesn' t appear to be publicly available.
If any professional botanists read this forum, do come out and help me, and maybe others, understand.