Help please!!!

Hi...

I need help with the ID of this beauty! I am new with plants and I suspect that it belongs to the genus Mammillaria? If so, what species is this? Also, what is that 'body' that emerged from the side and is this normal?

It certainly looks like a Mammillaria, and what a lovely plant!

I'm having difficult coming to a conclusion as to which species, though. My firs thought was M. obconella, because eof the yellowish 4 central spines, but then I saw that there were a lot of shorter radial spines, of which M. obconella (or polythele) doesn't have any. So then I thought about M. rhodantha, and that is probably where I am going towards. It is a very variable species, with lots of subspecies, varieties or forms, some of which are recognised, though many are not.

I hope other people chip in, as beyond that, I would struggle, I'm afraid, though there might e an outside chance that it is a form of M. rekoi.

You've given me a tough one as your first!!

Hi Chris!

Yikes!    
What a tough one then.. I bought this from a local nursery and have asked them as well if they can assist with the identification, and after going through many books and literature with them, they advised that it belonged to the genus Echinocactus and I clearly opposed their view, simply based on the differences in the phenotypic characteristics.

Many thanks on giving me some pointers for further research, will definitely look into it further and would also welcome any suggestions from other members!

I bought this from a local nursery but they do not know the name or ID of this plant. After searching over net and many sites, unable to find name or ID of this plant.

I know its not Mammillaria but hope one could help in searching or identifying the name.

Here is a link for the picture: https://i.servimg.com/u/f39/18/94/77/65/dsc03613.jpg

Hi Mermishmah,
Really this should have gone into its own thread, rather than as an additional posting on this thread.
You are also right that this is not a Mammillaria, so this shouldn't be here anyway.
But so long as you don't use this Forum as a general cactus forum, I won't delete it now.
I think, but only think, that this might be a form of Austrocylindropuntia subulata, there are some monstrose forms that look like this. But I am not sure, as I don't grow this kind of cactus.

The spination of the yellow-spined plant does not look right for a rekoi form to me, I tend to M. rhodantha ssp. pringlei, which is yellow-spined. I do have a plant grown from seed which is labelled M. pringlei south of Ocotlán. It has the upward curving yellow spines. There are 6 (sub)central spines and around 20 radial spines. Interestingly, from the same region I have a number of seed-grown plants which are labelled M. obconella fa. Ocotlán TL 581. They too have those upward curved yellow spines. There are again 6 (sub)central spines, but there are no radial spines! On the smallest of these plants there is some wool around the axils and on a few of these woolly axils some very thin hairlike spines can be discerned. M. obconella should not grow in the Ocotlán region but I can well imagine that Linzen called these plants M. fa. obconella, because of the lack of radial spines and because M. pringlei should have radial spines.

Wolter ten Hoeve, The Netherlands.

Wolter, Thanks for this. I hesitated to give a subspecies name, though I probably would have gone for pringlei. My hesitation was because of the confusion that I guess still exists since Plein and Rogo published their ssp. aureiceps. You're right, no way obconella shoud grow in Jalisco.